Wow... If there is one thing about todd howard that I dont like is that there are certain things he hypes about (Radient AI in Oblivion)

Does anyone have any proof of this?

In the end, you have 5 Cities, 8+ Towns, 120+ Dungeons, and 100+ Points Of Interest spread throughout the world.

Well maybey your right but he should be more carefull about what he said. Alteast he's not like that guy in Lionhead (moylnuex?) Any way do you know why he removed half of the settlements?

Check the map in the BTS video.
I circled the towns that were there. I counted 14 towns. Now it's 8-9 towns.
http://i.imgur.com/aDEPv.jpg

Considering we got zero explanation for Cyrodiil not being a jungle, I very much doubt they'll go out of their way to explain the economic history of each settlement.

Its probably just one of those things that changed after they tested the game a bit. With over a hundred dungeons, having 20 substantial towns and 5 major cities would probably make this whole map feel like one big neighborhood. Its a hard balance to achieve, needing space between action as well as making sure the game world doesn't feel empty

I was refering to the proof of 8-9 towns.

http://pc.ign.com/articles/116/1166051p1.html
Near the bottom, under the khajiit screen.

I'm not sure what to believe. 3 conflicting report. A foreign magazine reporting 20+, this article reporting 8-9, and Todd claiming "about a dozen". It would seem strange that they would actually remove towns after making them, especially more than half of them. I'm going to go with Todd's statement for the moment. It's recent and basically matches the map (though the other map we've seen had more labels marked on the roadside as well that was closer to 20).

The foreign magazine was double translated. (English-->language-->English) So that's pretty unreliable. And Todd said "about a dozen" a while ago. The 8-9 towns report is pretty recent.

Todd was a couple of weeks back, hardly far and I doubt they changed it since then. And this is IGN, who said there was 1000 steps to High Hrothgar. None of these sources are entirely reliable.

It's not only IGN.
http://www.gameplanet.co.nz/xbox/games/165080/previews/136885.The-Elder-Scrolls-V-Skyrim/
"One of the eight or nine towns that act as quest hubs, Riverwood, is our first introduction to the updated Radiant AI system."

Would anyone put it by Todd to say "8 or 9" to several magazines, "a dozen or so" to others, and "20" to even more, just for the hell of it? If anything it keeps conversation going

Just guessing for fun, but I believe the towns, not of the "Great Five," will provide some services, but limited.

Perhaps an inn or a special merchant or two. Maybe the "smaller" towns support local farms and very small industry, etc, or even a local chieftain, while the greater towns support larger commerical enterprises and greater clan headquarters. They could be locations for quest activities, places to learn more about certain quests...?

Of course, I do not have any idea how the apparent decline in significance of certain towns will be explaied.

While it is sometines fun to speculate, I find myself, probably like most of you, looking forward to 11-11-11, for resolution.

That's just downright weird then, since these reports are from the same event where Todd stated about a dozen. You'll probably think I'm being overly optimistic, but I think maybe it's refering to major areas in the main quest or major questlines, for a few reasons. Firstly, one article says "one of the quest hubs" and another says "that you'll visit in your campaign". Secondly, it would be pretty weird to have only one town a hold, particularly when Riverwood is in a hold called Falkreath Hold, named after the previously major city of Flakreath, which is listed being quite large on that map from the BTS video. I don't know, I'm just generally rather skeptical of all this conflicting information.

Sorry no, not off the top of my head. It was from an article before my join date here, I know that much lol. Thats why I didn't come out and state it as pure fact, and asked if anyone else remembered.

Okay, I've found the actual quote by Todd.

“There are 5, what we call, big cities, and they’re all really, really unique. There’s a couple of shots of them. Those 5 are really unique. Skyrim is broken into 9 holds – a hold is like a county and each county is governed by a Jarl, who’s like a King of that county. 5 of those holds are kind of bigger – they have big cities – while the other 4 have smaller, what we would call, like a town. A little bigger than but like that. So towns, we have 8 or 9 of those.”
http://www.xbox360achievements.org/news/news-8174-Todd-Howard-Spills-All-on-Elder-Scrolls-V--Skyrim%E2%80%99s-Game-World.html

From what I understand, there are 5 Massive cities, 4 smaller cities, and 8-9 towns.

Okay, thanks, still seems pretty weird though, but anyway. Does the term "town" encompass villages, do you think, like 4 or 5 building settlements? And nevermind what I said about Riverwood, it's actually on the edge of Falkreath hold but technically in Whiterun. An issue with statements like what Todd said here, is that it could actually be taken several different ways. You could take it as a settlement in each hold = 5 cities plus 4 smaller ones = 9 "towns" or you could take it how you said, 5 cities, 4 major towns and 8 or 9 smaller towns or you could take it 5 cities and 4 major towns and 4 or 5 smaller towns.

Falkreath is the major town of Falkreath Hold. Articles saying that Riverwood is are just guessing.

Nah, that was just from me reading the map wrong.I looked at it and thought it was within the FH border, then looked back and realised my mistake.

I could be wrong but I think you missed a couple. Sunguard near the lake in the west of Rift, and North Keep in the north of Falkreath Hold. They both look like even smaller towns with only 2 cells.

@ OP: I've been wondering about how these minor cities will be featured. I'm guessing because they are the hold's capital so to speak they must have major guilds and such, but the reason for them being smaller is economic fall in the 200 hundred years since. But that doesn't make sense for them to be physically smaller. edit - Which a couple of them don't seem to be..

As confusing as it was, that Todd Howard quote

“There are 5, what we call, big cities, and they’re all really, really unique. There’s a couple of shots of them. Those 5 are really unique. Skyrim is broken into 9 holds – a hold is like a county and each county is governed by a Jarl, who’s like a King of that county. 5 of those holds are kind of bigger – they have big cities – while the other 4 have smaller, what we would call, like a town. A little bigger than but like that. So towns, we have 8 or 9 of those.”

seems to suggest they are fairly large, the major towns of each hold, of which there are 4 (I haven't been able to conclusively figure out where that last hold is BTW). Going by this: "while the other 4 have smaller, what we would call, like a town. A little bigger than but like that." So yeah, I guess they have a castle of some kind, if they're where the Jarl of the holds live. Maybe they'll be a bit like Caldera in Morrowind.

I thought there was supposed to be an absurd amount of small settlements.

So did I, but then the story changed.