{"id":3470,"date":"2012-03-29T21:30:12","date_gmt":"2012-03-30T01:30:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.Centives.net\/S\/?p=3470"},"modified":"2012-05-01T05:06:52","modified_gmt":"2012-05-01T09:06:52","slug":"the-wall-that-protects-the-seven-kingdoms","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.Centives.net\/S\/2012\/the-wall-that-protects-the-seven-kingdoms\/","title":{"rendered":"The Wall That Protects the Seven Kingdoms"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Centives’ coverage of The Game of Thrones <\/a>is spoiler-free for those who have watched the first season<\/em><\/p>\n

The towering wall that protects the Seven Kingdoms from mythical evils is one of the 9 Wonders Made by Man in George R.R. Martin’s World.<\/p>\n

At its highest point the wall that is made mostly of solid ice is\u00a0800 feet<\/a> or 244 meters tall. This makes it taller than the Pyramid of Giza, another man-made structure constructed in ancient times:<\/p>\n

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(Heights are to scale, widths are not)
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The Knights get to the top of the wall through a pulley system powered by a person standing at the base of the wall. Centives estimates that the elevator rises at a rate of about 10cm a second and so it takes 10 seconds to rise a meter. At that rate it would take about 40 minutes to reach the top of the wall.<\/p>\n

The wall also stretches 300 miles (482 km) across. This means that it pales in comparison to the Great Wall of China which is 8,800km<\/a> long, but China’s wall also twists and turns, while the Wall seen in Game of Thrones is a straight line. With the Nightswatch numbering less than a thousand during the first season of the show, this means that if evenly spread out, each Knight would be required to police a half kilometer of the wall.<\/p>\n

The wall is also wide enough for a dozen horsemen<\/a> to ride abreast. A standard horse trailer is about 1.8 meters wide<\/a> and so 12 horses would mean that the wall is 21.6 meters wide. With these dimensions then we can calculate the volume of the water trapped in the ice wall.<\/p>\n

The total volume of the ice is 2540332800m\u00b3 and at 0 \u00b0C ice has a density of 916.7 kg\/ m\u00b3<\/a>. Water has a slightly higher density and if we were to melt the wall down then we’d have 2.3 trillion <\/em>liters of water. According to Wolfram Alpha<\/a> this is five times the volume of water in Sydney Harbour and seven times the volume of oil transported by oil tankers worldwide in a year.<\/p>\n

Perhaps then\u00a0the Stark motto “Winter is Coming” isn’t as much of a warning as it is a desperate hope. If summer were to ever come then the wall might melt and quite literally sink Winterfell.<\/p>\n

Enjoyed this article? Read the rest of our Game of Thrones coverage<\/a>\u00a0to find out about the value of Lannister branding<\/a>\u00a0or the life span of a Dire Wolf. Or take a look at our other editorials<\/a> and some of our Greatest Hits<\/a>. You might also want to follow us on Twitter<\/a> or Facebook<\/a> to get the latest and greatest from Centives.<\/p>\n