The Reach

No corner of Westeros grows more grain or feeds more mouths than the Reach. Its wheat fields and vineyards stretch from the Sunset Sea in the west to the Dornish Marches in the southeast, with the Westerlands closing the way northwest through their hills and the Blackwater Rush marking the border to the northeast. Off its coast lie several islands: the Shield Islands, set at the mouth of the Mander to blunt ironborn raids, and the Arbor, further south and cut off from the rest of the continent.

The Mander and its tributaries water nearly the whole region, which is why its granaries never run dry. Two roads cross it toward the Crownlands and the Westerlands: the Roseroad, climbing to King's Landing, and the Ocean Road, running down to Lannisport. Along those routes sit the Reach's great seats: Highgarden, home of House Tyrell and the heart of regional power; Oldtown, the oldest city in Westeros, home to House Hightower and the Citadel; Brightwater Keep, the Florents' original seat and now held by a lesser branch of the Tyrells; and further out, Goldengrove, Horn Hill, Old Oak, Bitterbridge, the Sunhouse, and Ashford, each under a different house sworn to Highgarden.

Before dragons ever crossed the Narrow Sea, Highgarden answered to a crown of its own: House Tyrell held the castle as stewards in service to House Gardener, the dynasty that owned both the castle and the Reach's throne. That chain broke when King Mern IX Gardener fell at the Field of Fire, during the War of Conquest, leaving the Reach with no one left to serve.

With no crown left to defend, the Tyrells opened Highgarden's gates and yielded to Aegon the Conqueror. In return they kept the castle and gained something they had never had: authority over vassals who until then had been their equals, along with the title of Lords of the Reach. The border with Dorne, the Dornish Marches, had spent generations as contested ground between the two peoples, and its northern half ended up settled by lords loyal to Highgarden's new rulers.

Of all the regions of Westeros, the Reach gathers the most people into villages and castles, and it treats knighthood almost like a faith of its own: tourneys here follow their rules more strictly than anywhere else in the Seven Kingdoms, and being knighted carries more weight than at any other court. Children born outside marriage take the surname Flowers here, the mark that sets Reach-born bastards apart from those of any other region.

The Faith of the Seven also put down its first roots in these lands: its seat stood at Oldtown, beside the Hightowers, long before King's Landing raised the Great Sept of Baelor and took that role away.