King's Landing

King's Landing is the capital city of the Seven Kingdoms and the seat of the Iron Throne. It stands on the east coast of Westeros, on the north bank of the Blackwater Rush where the river empties into Blackwater Bay. The largest city in Westeros and one of the largest in the known world, it is the center of the realm's government and the residence of the king and the royal court.

The city was founded by Aegon the Conqueror, who first came ashore at the mouth of the Blackwater at the start of his conquest. There he raised a wooden fort on the highest of the three hills that overlook the river, and around that beginning the city grew. The three hills are named for the Conqueror and his sister-wives: Aegon's High Hill, Rhaenys's Hill, and Visenya's Hill.

Geography

King's Landing sits on the south-easternmost edge of the lands historically known as the Crownlands, the territory directly ruled by the Iron Throne. It is a sprawling, crowded, and famously malodorous city, its air thick with smoke, sewage, and the smell of the harbor. A great curtain wall pierced by seven gates encloses it.

The city's three hills give it its shape. Atop Aegon's High Hill stands the Red Keep, the fortified royal castle. On Visenya's Hill rose the Great Sept of Baelor, the seat of the Faith of the Seven. Rhaenys's Hill holds the ruin of the Dragonpit, the great domed structure that once housed the Targaryen dragons. Below and between the hills lie districts such as Flea Bottom, the poorest and most wretched quarter, where bowls of "brown" are sold in pot-shops.

History

King's Landing grew from Aegon's first landing fort into a true city over the reigns of the early Targaryen kings. Where Aegon's wooden Aegonfort had stood, his successor Maegor the Cruel built the Red Keep in red stone. The city had no walls in its earliest days; it was Jaehaerys the Conciliator who oversaw much of its later building and ordered the construction of the Dragonpit.

The city was sacked during Robert's Rebellion, when the armies of House Lannister entered under the pretense of defending it for the Targaryens and instead put it to the sword on behalf of Robert Baratheon. During this Sack, the Mad King Aerys II was slain by Jaime Lannister of his own Kingsguard, and the children of Rhaegar Targaryen were murdered.

In the story

King's Landing is the political heart of much of A Song of Ice and Fire. Eddard Stark comes south to serve as Hand of the King and is executed on the steps of the Great Sept of Baelor at the command of King Joffrey. The city endures the Battle of the Blackwater, when Stannis Baratheon's fleet and host assault it and are defeated by the wildfire and sortie engineered by Tyrion Lannister and the relieving Lannister-Tyrell army. Later the city becomes the stage for the rise of the militant Faith and the imprisonment of Cersei Lannister, who walks naked through its streets in penance.

Inhabitants and government

The king rules from the Iron Throne in the Red Keep, advised by the Small Council and protected by the Kingsguard. The City Watch, known as the gold cloaks, keeps order within the walls. The city teems with smallfolk, merchants, sailors, beggars, and the great lords and ladies who keep manses there to be near the court.