The Nine Kingdoms of Westeros Explained (& Why It’s Not Seven)

In the season 1 finale of A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, “The Morrow,” our heroes Ser Duncan the Tall (Peter Claffey) and Aegon Targaryen (Dexter Sol Ansell) rode off into the horizon, their roles as knights and squire firmly established…only maybe not, because as much that Egg has to learn from Dunk about life, there’s still a lot that Dunk doesn’t know about the world, like how many kingdoms are in the Seven Kingdoms.

Obviously, Dunk thinks there are seven, and he’d be forgiven for saying so, but Egg disabuses him, revealing there are really nine: the Crownlands, the Westerlands, the Stormlands, the Riverlands, the Iron Islands, the North, the Reach, the Vale of Arryn, and Dorne.

So why is it called the Seven Kingdoms if there are nine of them?

How Seven Kingdoms Became Nine Regions

There are nine regions of Westeros in A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms and in Game of Thrones, but there were seven kingdoms back when they were actually ruled by individual kings, over 200 years before Dunk and Egg meet. That’s around the time when Aegon the Conqueror, the Targaryen warrior after whom Egg is named, took over Westeros with the help of his sisters and their dragons. That turned the seven kingdoms into the Seven Kingdoms, which is really one united country (save Dorne, which maintained its independence for a while, but that’s another story).

But things got a little hazy in the transition. One region was broken in two, and a whole new region was created, technically raising the number of kingdoms from seven to nine.

The Nine Regions of Westeros, Then and Now

Chase Stone for The World of Ice and Fire

Let’s go over all nine kingdoms at issue, starting with the ones with the least complicated histories and getting more arcane as we go.

The North

The home base of the Starks is one of the most iconic places in the Game of Thrones universe, and it’s been more or less the same for millennia. Things change slowly up there.

• Before Aegon’s Conquest: Ruled by House Stark. King Torrhen Stark bent the knee to Aegon the Conqueror rather than fight a losing battle where his people would be slaughtered, making him the first Warden of the North. He thereafter became known as “the King Who Knelt.”
• During Game of Thrones: Still ruled by House Stark.

The Vale

This mountainous region has also had consistent leadership for the past few centuries.

• Before Aegon’s Conquest: Ruled by House Arryn. Queen Regent Sharra Arryn submitted to the Targaryens when Queen Visenya Targaryen rode her dragon Vhagar (the same one from House of the Dragon) up to the Eyrie and took Sharr’s son Ronnel Arryn for a fun ride. After that, Sharra knew better than to fight back.
• During Game of Thrones: Still ruled by House Arryn.

Dorne

Dorne, a desert region at the southernmost tip of Westeros, was the only kingdom to hold out against Aegon’s invasion.

• Before Aegon’s Conquest: Ruled by House Martell. Princess Meria Martell refused to yield to Aegon or his sister Rhaenys, sent as his emissary. At the time, the Targaryens were content to let Dorne alone and concentrate on the rest of Westeros, but they eventually came back, and were still unable to subdue the desert kingdom. Eventually, Dorne only joined the Seven Kingdoms through a marriage pact made not long before the time of A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms.
• During Game of Thrones: Still ruled by House Martell.

The Westerlands

The Westerlands are where the Lannisters have long ruled, mining gold and rangling lions.

• Before Aegon’s Conquest: Ruled by House Lannister. King Loren I Lannister teamed up with House Gardener from the Reach to fight the invading Targaryens, but after they were resoundingly defeated on the Field of Fire, King Loren submitted to the Targaryens and was allowed to become the first Warden of the West.
• During Game of Thrones: Still ruled by House Lannister.

The Reach

This is where A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms takes place. It’s also the first region on our list to change hands during Aegon’s Conquest.

• Before Aegon’s Conquest: Ruled by House Gardener. King Mern IX Gardener teamed up with House Lannister to fight the Targaryens, but their army was smoked on the Field of Fire, when three dragons descended on them at once. While King Loren I Lannister survived the battle and ended up submitting afterward, King Mern and his entire line was destroyed, meaning there were no more Gardeners around to rule the Reach. In their place, House Tyrell — which had been the steward of Highgarden — turned the castle over to King Aegon. In return for their submission, Aegon put them in charge of the Reach.
• During Game of Thrones: Ruled by House Tyrell…until near the end of the show, anyway.

The Stormlands

The Stormlands also changed hands.

• Before Aegon’s Conquest: Ruled by House Durrandon. King Argilac Durrandon, aka Argilac the Arrogant, would not yield to the Targaryens and was slain in battle by Aegon’s half-brother and best friend Orys Baratheon. Afterwards, Orys married King Argilac’s daughter Argella, took up residence in the king’s castle of Storm’s End, and started the Baratheon dynasty.
• During Game of Thrones: Ruled by House Baratheon.

The Riverlands

This is where things start getting complicated.

• Before Aegon’s Conquest: Ruled by House Hoare of the Iron Islands. At this point in history, both the Riverlands and the Iron Islands were ruled by an Ironborn king named Harren Hoare, aka Harren the Black, who built the massive castle of Harrenhal in honor of himself. Aegon Targaryen burnt Harren and his sons to a crisp within its walls, and afterwards named the Tullys of Riverrun as Lords Paramount of the Trident. He also made the Riverlands a separate kingdom from the Iron Islands, so one kingdom became two.
• During Game of Thrones: Ruled by House Tully.

The Iron Islands

• Before Aegon’s Conquest: Ruled by House Hoare. After Aegon killed King Harren, the Iron Islands went through a succession crisis that ended when Aegon invaded and installed the Greyjoys as the new leaders. But they were leaders of the Iron Islands only, not the Iron Islands and the Riverlands, as it had been before.
• During Game of Thrones: Ruled by House Greyjoy.

The Crownlands

• Before Aegon’s Conquest: The Crownlands didn’t exist before Aegon invaded. They mark the spot where he landed, upon which he built the city of King’s Landing. The Targaryens ruled the Crownlands until they were overthrown in Robert’s Rebellion, after which they went to…
• During Game of Thrones: Ruled by House Baratheon.

Related

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So that’s the answer: there were seven kingdoms when Aegon invaded — the North, the Vale, the Stormlands, Dorne, the Reach, the Westerlands, and the Kingdom of the Isle and the Rivers — but Aegon split the Kingdom of the Isle and the Rivers in two, creating the Riverlands and the Iron Islands. And he created the Crownlands completely from scratch, making a total of nine kingdoms.

That said, the Crownlands are kind of like a bonus kingdom. They’re a little like Washington, D.C.; it’s where the capital city is, and they’re kind of their own state, but not in the way that other states are states. And clearly, the name “Seven Kingdoms” persisted regardless of how many kingdoms are technically within its borders. Still, Egg is technically correct that there are nine kingdoms in the Seven Kingdoms, and technically correct is the best kind of correct, so points for him.

Next on the Westeros docket is the third season of House of the Dragon, which will provide yet more opportunities to dive into the extremely dense lore of this world.

Release Date

January 18, 2026

Network

HBO

Showrunner

Ira Parker

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  Peter Claffey

  Ser Duncan ‘Dunk’ the Tall

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