Who Has The Most Men? (Stark, Lannister, Baratheon, Tyrell, Stormlands, Iron Islands, Dorne) 🤔

This short uses evidence from A Game of Thrones, A Clash of Kings, A Storm of Swords, A Feast for Crows, A Dance with Dragons and The Winds of Winter.

A Game of Thrones theory explained, prepare for The Winds of Winter release date with a theory video of George R. R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire book series and something to think about while waiting for HBO's House of the Dragon Season 2.

[Zekor]

There's no way a militant culture like the Iron Islands will have the same ratio of army to population as a kingdom like the Riverlands.

[FathersUnited-fu]

I can't see 1-2million people living on the Iron Islands the way they're described. It seems like a terrible existence.

[SignumInterriti]

I think the problem with this method is that these are not nation-state armies, they are a mix of feudal levys and paid soldiers, so really how many men you can field at any given point depends more on who of your bannermen is willing and able to march with you and how much you spend on recruitement and wages, rather than raw population size.

[guinnesssauron]

It's very hard to believe that the Vale has 4 million people, since it is very mountaineous.

[MasaetaTheOni]

Putting it simply, it had to be the Reach. This is the medieval age, long before any serious urbanisation. Where you have large tracts of fertile lands you tend to have shit loads of peasants working it, and they in turn can support larger more populated cities.

[ramiromen]

They all make sense except the Riverlands and Westerlands. I feel they should have around 1 to 2 million more each. Specially considering how big Westeros really is

[AntoniosChatzimarkos]

Doesn't sound right. In the series Tyrion said to Jon that King's Landing has half a million population and Jon responded that that's more than the entire north combined. So the north can't have 4 millions

[-sk]

Damn. Why are the iron islands so densely populated? More than half of Dorne on these tiny islands? Perhaps the estimation should be corrected for them. I would guess they have more soldiers/population than the rest of the kingdoms.

[mubarakusman]

The Riverlands should theoretically be one of the most populous regions in Westeros. I think the Westerlands having more people isn’t really realistic

[pandapirateyearsago]

This adds up to 35.5 million westerosi. Cool!

Note: my estimate for the iron Islands is 0.5 million because i believe the population to army ratio to be larger

[antimatter]

Army size isn't that accurate of a way to determine population size. For example you may have a bigger or smaller percentage of your population trained as soldiers, you may be willing to sacrifice more or less of your population for a war, you may need a different amount of men back home to farm the fields depending on season or climate.

A society like Spartans may be able to send 20% of their population to battle, romans may only be able to send 5%, vikings? Maybe 40%

[ingainloggningsnamn]

I think the Iron Islands can muster more soldiers per 1000 person than most other regions, even though the Reach is extremely fertile and produces so much food to feed their armies, but the Reach is probably second. Westerlands can probably get a pretty high ratio as well with their gold.

[Hubert]

Dorne themselves say their population is lower than they let on. And besides the scary name, the stormlands has pretty good, fertile land, so i feel like they should be higher.

[marcelinodolan]

the ironborn have so many soliders because all most everyone goes into the army

[bluelvn]

George didn't give is their tax codes either

[pupper]

Meanwhile Finland with a population of 5 million: 250k standing army, Reserve 900k.

[pinecactus]

The north likely has a much larger population closer to 5 mill. It's just so freaking big that it's hard to mobilize people. The north is twice to 2.5x as big as the reach while only having about half of the population.
The sheer size of the north is hard to imagine but in real terms it's about 5x France. So that's the whole of Spain, France, Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, Switzerland, Italy and some part of eastern Europe that is just the size of the north.
Westeros is pretty underpopulated for its size and comparable time period to Europe.

[aegorbittersteel]

The chivalrous Reach many of those Houses support King Daemon Blackfyre🗡

[Scaphism]

The Iron Islands probably don’t have half of that, but instead a much higher percentage of men are pirates/raiders because of the whole “We do not sow” thing

[allisonargent]

People forgot that Dorne never bent, bowed or were broken by the Targaryens and only joined the 7 kingdoms through marriage because the dragons never could conquer Dorne. That’s why they retained their status as Prince and Princess of Dorne