The main region lies between the Blackwater River in the south, and Crackclaw Point in the north. The mainland itself is further divided into three regions. The Crownlands consist of two major regions: the mainland area which is ruled from King's Landing itself, and the islands of Blackwater Bay, which are ruled from Dragonstone island by the heir to the throne. Gods Eye lake forms the southern part of the border between the Riverlands and the Crownlands, but the northern part of the border with the Riverlands is arbitrary, not defined by geographical features. The Crownlands do not directly touch the lands of the Vale, as the Bay of Crabs separates them by sea, and a small strip of the eastern Riverlands separates them by land. The Reach borders it to the southwest, and the Riverlands border it to the northwest. The Crownlands are located on the east coast of Westeros, on the shores of the Narrow Sea, north of the Stormlands and south of the Vale of Arryn. The Crownlands is politically subdivided into two areas: the mainland part administered directly by the King on the Iron Throne and his Small Council from the city of King's Landing, and the offshore islands under the authority of the Prince of Dragonstone, traditionally the heir to the throne.īastards born in the Crownlands are given the surname Waters. With the legal complete extinction of House Targaryen, the great houses of Westeros decided to change their monarchy system from hereditary to elective, and chose Bran Stark to rule the Six Kingdoms from the Crownlands. After Robert's death, control of the Crownlands and King's Landing passed to Joffrey, after his death - to Tommen, and then to Cersei.Īfter Cersei's death, she was succeeded by Daenerys Targaryen, who was killed shortly afterwards. When House Targaryen was deposed at the end of Robert's Rebellion, seventeen years before the War of the Five Kings, Robert took the throne, and his new House Baratheon of King's Landing took up the rule of the Crownlands. įor most of its three centuries of existence the Crownlands were ruled directly by House Targaryen and their subordinate vassals. None of them wanted to deal with the Targaryen threat directly, and each wasted so much time arguing that Aegon was really the problem of the other two respective kingdoms that the Targaryens were able to land all of their forces and establish a firm beachhead unopposed. One of the main reasons Aegon the Conqueror began his invasion in the area which would become the Crownlands is because it was where the borders between these three powerful rival kingdoms met. Culturally and historically, the Crownlands were primarily an extension of the Riverlands, but with cultural influences from neighboring regions which periodically captured territory in the region, such as the Stormlands, the Reach, and even the Iron Islands. The Crownlands are even younger than the Riverlands (which are loosely the "eighth" kingdom), which at least existed as a loose cultural area for thousands of years even if they weren't always politically independent, thus the Crownlands functionally make up the ninth "kingdom" within the realm anachronistically known as "the Seven Kingdoms". The Riverlands were always more of a borderland frequently changing hands between rival strong kingdoms and were not an independent kingdom at the time of the Targaryen Conquest, and thus are technically not counted as one of the "Seven" Kingdoms. It is therefore the newest of the regions in Westeros, and as a result, does not have much of a distinct "cultural identity", so much as it is shaped by its distinction as the region containing the capital city. The Crownlands were never a sovereign nation, instead being contested between the Riverlands, the Stormlands, and other regions for thousands of years until Aegon the Conqueror seized control of the area during his invasion and made it his primary foothold on the continent, three centuries before the death of King Robert Baratheon.
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