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[Virtz]

Now, I must be missing something, but could someone explain to me how they understand years in this thing? I mean, a year in the most basic sense is a cycle of seasons. That's what a simple person with no concept of astronomy would define a year as. So what's a year supposed to be here since winter and summer last for years each?

[Loud Whispers]

They measure it in days? People in tropical climates with only two seasons don't have shorter/longer years, and the single monarchy (well former monarchy) control implies they all shared the same calender and still do

[Africa]

This is, I believe, the subject of much debate.

My first theory was that they actually measure time in months (that's assuming they have a moon, although I can't remember any explicit mention of one) and it's translated for our convenience into "years."

But if that's the case, people having name-days doesn't make sense. It seems they have a year that is similar or the same in length to an earth year.

So, I'm forced to assume the climate is subject, for some unknown reasons, to very rapid climate change, with hot periods following hot on the heels of ice ages, and vice versa. All plant life has adapted to this, and is used to going dormant during the brief ice ages and then growing non-stop during the warm periods. The planet does have earthlike years and seasons, but the pattern of ice ages/warm ages makes any proper seasonal changes unnoticeable. So that "long summer" that just finished up as the series began would have had times, on a pretty regular basis, that were warmer and colder than others, but none of them varied that much from the warm norm, and none of it was outside the variation we on earth might see in a regular summer in a temperate climate.

[Grakelin]

We know that the seasonal transitions in Westeros are not different or more rapid than the ones on Earth because it has been Autumn since at least the end of Book 3. There are frequent mentions in Books 4 and 5 of the dangers of the sea during the Fall. There is mention in Book 1 of the seasons having once been normal (and, according to GRRM, the seasonal shifts are magical in nature), so the best conjecture is that they had already invented their calendar before the seasons started to last for too long a time. Old Valyria is an obvious Roman Empire allegory, so it is entirely plausible everybody is using the Julian Calendar.

It is somewhat clear to me that this society has the capacity to understand astronomy, as well, considering they have professional academics. Nobles (the main characters in this story) would have no difficulty following a calendar.

As for the peasantry: somebody probably just tells them, if they can't count it for themselves.

[Virtz]

The problem with it being based only on astronomy would be that at some point they'd have to radically redefine what a year is. You'd think they'd invent a new term instead. That the long seasonal changes weren't always there and they defined what a year is prior to that sounds sensible, though.

Thanks for the answers.

[malloc]

Given that the season lengths are very irrational, it would seems natural to me to count time in some other way. One would perhaps be to base it on the orbits of the moon(s), of a given planet. Then choose some arbitrary number of moon phases to match a person lifespan or something.

But honestly, I guess it's more a matter of the author thinking it would be cool to have a universe where mundane things like seasons were unpredictable. Considering the universe features magic, undead-like creatures, not to mention dragons, thinking to much about how the heck the inhabitants count years seem a bit arbitrary.

A planet with such irrational seasons probably indicate that the planet has a very alien orbit. If it was elliptical people would eventually figure out the season lengths, and could probably construct a calender that was based around seasons. But considering they can't seems to suggest the planet has a very complicated orbit around its sun. Probably involving more than one body of mass having a strong gravitational influence on the planet. In real life such a scenario usually would end up with one or more of the planets simply getting flung out of the system altogether.
This is also why astronomers look for as circular orbits as possible when looking for exoplanets. In astronomic terms, a world like that one in a game of thrones would probably not be able to support life very long, the irrational seasons would probably sabotage any long term lifeforms, not to mention the possibility to be flung out of the solarsystem altogether.

So yes, how they record passing years will probably forever be a mystery, or a simple plot hole (GASP PLOT HOLES IN MY GAME OF THRONES?!).
I still enjoy the show. Yeah it does have some short comings, but I like it nevertheless.

[Willfor]

IIRC, GRRM has said multiple times at conventions that the world's funny way with seasons is entirely independent of a physical explanation, and trying to use an orbital solution is futile at best. There is a magical explanation for it.