I dont know if everyone's aware so i thought i'd share..in the jarls longhouse in winterhold there's a room with a map with flag markers apparently showing imperial/stormcloak controlled areas. If you click on the flags, the locations will update on your map. I dont know if this is relevent to the imp/storm quest as i haven't joined either so forgive me if this is a spolier

Oh, I was wondering what that was for.

I don't think it's related to the civil war questline, but it's a good way to get every town and fort marked on your map early in the game, there's one of these maps in the Jarl's place in each of the hold capitals, so you can just activate each location on the map in Dragonsreach as soon as you get to Whiterun whenever you start a new game.

I think almost every Jarl has one of these somewhere.

It's in every jarl house and the command centers or each faction.