Cairhien

Cairhien is both a nation and its capital city, lying between the Erinin and the Spine of the World. The city is a strict grid of terraced stone hills with tall unfinished towers, and the crowded Foregate district spills outside its walls. Its nobles play Daes Dae'mar, the Game of Houses, with famous intensity.

Twenty years before the story, King Laman cut down Avendoraldera, a sapling of the Tree of Life given by the Aiel, and the Aiel War followed. Rand first passes through Cairhien in The Great Hunt, and the city becomes central to later books.