One of my favourite quests of all time is the one in Oblivion where you have to help the Farmer's sons defend their home from a horde of Goblins.

Since getting Skyrim, I've missed them and was wondering, is there any Lore reason as to why Goblins aren't in the Province (such as the cold, or they were wiped out?)

There are no goblins in Morrowind either, reason: goblins live in Cyrodiil, not elsewhere. And this being a lore question, it should be in the lore section of the forums.

Goblins live in many places, not just Cyrodiil. The Altmer surely don't sail to Cyrodiil to enslave more goblins as needed, after all.

Not exactly. Goblins doesn't live at every region Tamriel but at least Cyrodiil, Hammerfell and High Rock have them. About the Morrowind you are half right: there aren't goblins on Vvardenfell but on Morrowind mainland parts they does exist. About the elven and beast race lands I'm unsure if they does or does not have goblins.

Goblins are smarter than I thought...took one look at Skyrim and said "Too cold. See ya."

I personally think weasel-lore should be avoided like plague, since by its nature it's BATW as Hell. Just because Skyrim does not have mice in it there is no reason to assume that in the lore version of Skyrim there are no mice in the world. We know from the Game-Jam content that Bethesda was probably planning to have goblins but left them out (well they were actually implemented as rieklings in DB). There's a mod called Immersive Creatues that adds goblins into the more temperate areas of Skyrim and they fit in perfectly as you would assume. Of course one could say that due to the violent nature of Nord culture most goblins have been hunted down. Nevertheless it's mostly a development limitation than anything to do with actual lore. It would be strange to have species that adhere strictly to man/mer made state borders as they do in the games.

The Chaurus ate Them.

Because instead of degenerated Ayleid who became Goblins, Skyrim has degenerated Snow Elves who became Falmer.

Goblins live in Morrowind, just not on VVardenfell.

The Goblins come and go. They were in Arena and Oblivion only (correct me if I am wrong). So they are everywhere. But they swapped places with the dragons and now the Goblins are invisible.

They don't like the cold anyway.

Cyrodiilic Goblindom is but the genetic detritus of Old Ayleidoon.

Too much competition from the Falmer. The Falmer are smarter and deadlier, and occupy their nich. Goblins hate the cold anyway, so no big loss.

Goblins are one of the things in Cyrodiil that I miss in Skyrim.

Though I suppose the Falmer kind of step in for Goblins.

Lore-wise, I don't suppose there is any reason except the cold. Most goblins in Cyrodiil don't really were alot. Though there are some Goblins up north by Bruma. Still in Cyrodiil most Goblin dungeons seem to be in the temperate part, not at the far north or south of Cyrodiil. So I guess it's the climate.

Is there any backings on this "goblins=ayelids" bit? I wasn't aware of that. Not that I'm calling anyone liars.

I was under the assumption they were only in Morrowind artificially, as someone was building a goblin army?

I think like Fiore1300. That could be a good lore reason. However, I believe Bethesda didn't have enough time to include Goblins in Skyrim, whereas there are already Falmers. Anyway, Goblins are almost everywhere in Nirn : in Cyrodiil, in Hammerfall (in Stros M'Kai too), in Summerset Isles, in Morrowind (except Vvardenfell), in High Rock (Orsinium), in Valenwood, in Akavir, and elsewhere, I think, therefore, Lord Daem, you will probably have Goblins in the next ES.

Almost everything is everywhere in Arena, including medusas and lizard men. There is as much reason to put goblins is in Skyrim as there is for minotaurs. I don't think a reason has been given for their absence from the northern provinces (bar the previous Orsinium and Helseth's army), but I don't recall anyone saying that they were there in the first place either.

Hi Beron, http://i142.photobucket.com/albums/r105/Enoil/ImperialFishyStick.jpg!

I would say the presence of goblins has historical reasons.

First, let's say that the Goblins in Morrowind might have been (at least partly) brought by Helseth. Most people are surprised to learn there were goblins :

"Goblins? In Mournhold? I've heard some odd stories of creatures in the sewers beneath Godsreach, but I never thought they might be goblins. Terrible creatures."

Now, accodring to thehttp://www.imperial-library.info/content/pocket-guide-empire-first-edition-wild-regions, Alinor freed "beastmen" (including goblins) north of valenwood. This would to having most of them in Cyrodiil and Hammerfell (and of course Alinor and Valenwood). The goblins who would have headed even northern would go to Orsinium, instead of Skyrim.

Thanks! My first Imperial reward!

But how do you explain the presence of Goblins at Akaviri troops?

Probably in the same way the Chimeri-quey reached Cathnoquey.

The closest known island to Akavir seems to be Esroniet. The goblins the Tsaesci enslaved might come from there.

They were displaced by the Falmer.

/headfancanonlore

This would be my guess. The idea of hiding entire populations in cave systems is to avoid predators. If the predators suddenly take over the cave systems themselves, the goblins are either going to run or be killed. Between goblins and Falmer, I would have to believe that the Falmer would quickly overrun any goblins they encountered, especially if they were still very new to their deformations when they began to purge the caves of the goblins and were therefore still somewhat "civilized" (and even if not, I seem to remember the Falmer in Skyrim being much stronger opponents than the goblins in Oblivion, but I could simply be assuming that. Now that I'm thinking about it, Baurus snarks that you shouldn't have any problems with "rats and goblins" despite being fresh out of prison in Oblivion, while Falmer raiding parties seemed to cause a lot more deaths on the roads of Skyrim than even the civil war--in fact, I don't remember the civil war spilling out into civilian life at all, but even with all these bandits and soldiers on the roads, the Falmer were still a dangerous, and possibly the most dangerous, threat to travelers).

Are they? IIRC, the Falmer are unknown creatures to most people, and there is only one place where you can find falmer traces on the surface, and those who investigated before you didn't recognized their origin.

Have the developers said something about the slaves of Blackreach that i missed?

I recall seeing at least two wagons stopped in the middle of the road with Falmer arrows sticking out of the corpses of their occupants, and an empty camp that was set up by bounty hunters that were hunting whatever it was that was stopping traffic in the area (the implication being that the hunters found the Falmer they were hunting, and got killed themselves). The camp makes it clear that rumors of strange things coming up from the caves to kill off travelers have reached other people, but that wasn't really my point. It's not important whether or not other people know what is killing travelers on the roads. The important point was that the Falmer were responsible for it, and that this kind of aggression is absent (as far as I remember in Oblivion) from goblins, who stick to their caves.

That would also explain why there are Rieklings in Solstheim but not Skyrim proper.