Why the Seven Kingdoms of Westeros Are Actually Nine

In the season 1 finale of A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, "The Morrow," Ser Duncan the Tall and Aegon Targaryen rode off into the horizon. Dunk assumes there are seven kingdoms, but Egg corrects him: there are nine — the Crownlands, the Westerlands, the Stormlands, the Riverlands, the Iron Islands, the North, the Reach, the Vale of Arryn, and Dorne.

There were seven kingdoms when they were each ruled by individual kings, over 200 years before Dunk and Egg meet. Aegon the Conqueror then united those realms into the Seven Kingdoms, turning them into one country, though Dorne held out and maintained its independence for a while.

The count changed during the Targaryen conquest when one region was broken in two and a new region was created. Aegon split the old Kingdom of the Isle and the Rivers into the Riverlands and the Iron Islands, and he created the Crownlands from the spot where he landed and built King's Landing.

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