The Map¶

The Lands of the Iron Wolf, in Lithuanian Geležinio Vilko žemės: Lithuania, the Baltic and her neighbours, 1341–1450. The main map names only the places a reader needs at a glance. Click any named place that has a page in this wiki to open it; hover over it, or move to it with the Tab key, for a short note. The two insets below show the saga’s closest country at a larger scale, and the table at the end lists every place.

Painted map of Lithuania and its neighbours. Vilnius, Trakai, Kreva and Kaunas lie in the north-west of the Grand Duchy; the Order's Prussia with Marienburg and Koenigsberg lies on the Baltic coast to the west; Livonia with Riga to the north; the Kingdom of Poland with Warsaw and Kraków to the south-west; Polotsk, Smolensk and Kyiv to the east. A dashed red line shows Kestutis's ride to the camp at Trakai and Vytautas's escape from Kreva in 1382. Each named place with a wiki page is a link. — The Lands of the Iron Wolf: Lithuania, the Baltic and her neighbours, 1341–1450. Click a place to open its page.

Larger image · Black-and-white print version

Inset 1: Vilnius, Trakai and Kreva, 1382¶

Large-scale map of the country around Vilnius and Trakai. Kestutis's pine hill and Jogaila's camp lie west of Trakai on Lake Galve; a dashed line (1) runs from Kaunas to the camp; a second dashed line (2) runs from Kreva south into the forests, well clear of Lida, Vytautas's escape. Each named place with a wiki page is a link. — Vilnius, Trakai and Krėva, 1382

The camp between the lakes and the pines where Kęstutis and Vytautas were taken on 3 August 1382 (Jogaila’s camp, the road to it), the ride that led there (1), and Vytautas’s flight from Krėva in the autumn (2). The camp and the pine hill are the saga’s places: their exact spots are not in the record. Larger image.

Inset 2: Prussia and the road to Grunwald, 1410¶

Large-scale map of Prussia, Masovia and southern Lithuania. A dashed line (3) runs from Kraków north through Czerwinsk on the Vistula to Grunwald; a second line (4) follows the Order's Reise from Koenigsberg along the Nemunas through Ragnit, Jurbarkas and Kaunas to Vilnius. Each named place with a wiki page is a link. — Prussia and the road to Grunwald, 1410

Jogaila’s march from Kraków over the pontoon bridge at Czerwińsk to Grunwald (3), and the road the Order’s Reise took from Königsberg up the Nemunas to Vilnius (4). Larger image.

How to read it¶

Signs: a castle is a fortified place; a small circle a town; crossed swords a battlefield; a diamond a place that exists only in the saga or whose spot is uncertain; a few small trees mark the great forests, where the Dykra lies between the Nemunas and the Order.
Colours: the soft washes show the lordships about 1430 (Grand Duchy of Lithuania in gold, the Order’s Prussia in grey-blue, Livonia in violet, the Kingdom of Poland and Masovia in red, Moscow in green). They are not borders: the frontiers moved every decade.
The dashed line on the main map joins the two journeys of 1382, Kęstutis’s ride and Vytautas’s escape. The other journeys are on the insets. The ride’s course is the saga’s own (the sources give only its start and end); Vytautas’s route follows the record: Krėva, Masovia, then the Order.
Accuracy: coasts, rivers and lakes follow the real land. Places stand where they really are, except the saga’s own places and those whose exact spot is uncertain; the table below marks them (for example, Jogaila’s camp and Kęstutis’s pine hill are placed by the story, and the positions of Salynas, Pabaiskas and Raciążek are approximate).

Every place on the map¶

Place	Kind	Shown on	When, and notes
Ašmena	town	inset 1	1370s-1390s
Astrava	site	inset 1	4 Aug 1392; Agreement of Ostrów; the saga puts it near Lida; saga place, position stylised
Brest	castle	inset 2	Council of 1409
Czerwińsk	site	inset 2	1410; Vistula pontoon crossing, 30 June 1410
Danzig	town	inset 2
Grodno	castle	map, inset 2	1432
Grunwald	battlefield	map, inset 2	15 July 1410
Horodło	site	inset 2	Union of 1413
Jogaila’s camp	site	inset 1	20 Jul - 3 Aug 1382; palisaded camp between the lakes and the pines; position stylised; saga place, position stylised
Jurbarkas	town	inset 2	Georgenburg
Kamianets	castle	table only	Podolia
Kaunas	castle	map, inset 1, inset 2	1362; Order’s raids
Kestutis’s pine hill	site	inset 1	3 Aug 1382; the pine hill beyond the Trakai lakes; position stylised; saga place, position stylised
Königsberg	castle	map, inset 2	Order’s Reise base
Kraków	castle	map, inset 2	Jogaila’s baptism 1386; on the Vistula
Krėva	castle	map, inset 1	1382; 1385; Kęstutis dies, 15 Aug 1382; the Union of 1385
Kyiv	city	map	Skirgaila’s seat 1395
Lake Galve	lake	inset 1
Lida	castle	inset 1
Lutsk	castle	map	1429
Lyck	castle	inset 2	1390
Marienburg (Malbork)	castle	map, inset 2	Order’s capital; on the Nogat
Marienwerder	castle	inset 2	Order
Medininkai (Varniai)	town	table only	1417; Samogitian bishopric, 1417
Memel (Klaipėda)	castle	table only	Order’s castle
Moscow	city	map	Sofija’s husband Vasily I
Novgorod	city	table only
Pabaiskas	battlefield	table only	1 Sep 1435; on the Šventoji, south of Ukmergė; position approximate
Palanga	town	map	Birutė’s grove
Płock	town	inset 2
Polotsk	castle	map
Pskov	castle	table only
Raciążek	site	inset 2	1404; position approximate
Ragnit	castle	inset 2	Order’s Nemunas castle
Riga	castle	map	Livonian Order
Salynas	river island	table only	12 Oct 1398; Nemunas islet near Kulautuva; position approximate
Smolensk	castle	map	1395; 1404
Sventaragis Valley	site	inset 1	1345; 1382; 1387; Neris-Vilnia confluence under Gediminas Hill
Tapiau	castle	inset 2	1385 (Vytautas baptised)
Thorn	castle	inset 2
Trakai	castle	map, inset 1	1382; 1392; Island castle on Lake Galvė
Vilnius	castle	map, inset 1, inset 2	1341-1450; Gediminas Hill; the capital and the Last Flame
Vitebsk	castle	table only
Vorskla	battlefield	map	12 Aug 1399; river battle; the exact field is disputed; position approximate
Warsaw	castle	map, inset 2	Masovia

Coastlines and rivers: Natural Earth (public domain).