what is west of westeros

No one in Westeros actually knows what lies west, but lore within the books and The World of Ice and Fire, a companion book to George R. R. Martin’s series, reveals Arya isn’t the first person to try to find out. Here’s everything we know.

The west side of Westeros—including Beyond the Wall, the North, the Iron Islands, The Reach, the Westerlands, and the Riverlands—borders the Sunset Sea. In A World of Ice and Fire, it’s suggested the Ironborn are descended from people west of the Sunset Sea.

George RR Martin really did a fine job in mapping out an entire world in his literary masterpiece, A Song of Ice and Fire, which is the basis for the hit HBO series, Game of Thrones. In fact, Game of Thrones is so popular that it led to the creation of House of the Dragon, a series that has become quite the hit as well. Of course, these shows were able to give justice to the world that Martin created by being able to map out the different lands and cities in what they call the known world.

Of course, the focus of Game of Thrones and House of the Dragon is the continent of Westeros, which is a rich continent that has enough land and resources to feed the Seven Kingdoms. Westeros is roughly the size of South America in real life, and that means that this is truly a continent-sized land that houses Seven Kingdoms in total.

Game of Thrones ended with the Starks all going their separate ways following the election of Bran the Broken as the king of the Six Kingdoms (yes, now six), the Iron Throne getting melted down, and Daenerys Targaryen dead. Arya Stark surprised her siblings as they were saying their goodbyes by revealing that she would not return North to Winterfell. Instead, she will venture west of Westeros -- a Game of Thrones spinoff we'd all love to see. But what’s west of Westeros anyway? Short answer: no one knows.

All the maps of their world stop there, so what’s west of the Sunset Sea is one of the great mysteries in the world of A Song of Ice and Fire. The superstitious and the ignorant believe their world is flat, but the maesters have said the world is round. All sailors have ever found so far, though, is a “boundless grey” sea. The denizens of the island of Lonely Light believe there’s a paradise west of Westeros, “a land without winter or want.” Other legends speak of green islands and golden cities.