I'am wondering if the cities we see in the game are acutally bigger lorewise. Solitude is a very pitful Captiol of Skyrim and I expect Markarth and Windhelm to be alot bigger and its only small because of gameplay limits.

Whiterun is also supposed to be a trading hub.

Yes, if the game was done to scale, the cities would be massive. Skyrim Itslef would be about the size of Libya and Algeria combined. There would also be loads more cities and villages. To get an idea of Tamriel to-scale, check out the maps of Daggerfall. Here's a http://images.uesp.net/5/56/DF-Daggerfall_City_Map.jpg; and here's a http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/1/18/Daggerfall1.png (a small portion of the game world), all the dots represent locations.

Absolutely.

The best "official" statement about this is from an interview with Greg Keyes, who wrote two Elder Scrolls novels that came out and take place between Oblivion and Skyrim.

http://grindingtovalhalla.wordpress.com/2009/12/02/reading-the-text-greg-keyes-interview/

However, the games themselves tend not to give absolute numbers which is a good decision.

Wow, if that is true the planet is really small.

"It's only a model" seems to be the general forum consensus. Daggerfall is the only one that is the actual size, but it had to repeat a lot of content to achieve it. So the easiest way to estimate the actual sizes of things is to compare maps of the Iliac Bay with other regions and math that [censored] up, then scale up cities and towns to proportion.

Conclusion: Tamriel is big.

I certainly hope so, the entire NPC population of Skyrim wouldn't fill a decent sized village.

I think I read the IC had one million people at its zenith, as opposed to the 150 odd NPC's in Oblivion's version

Apparently the Guide to Arena says that Tamriel is 12 million square miles in size, which is about the size of Africa.

Yes the actual population of Skyrim is probably at least several million, so a city such as Whiterun could be expected to house at least 100,000 people. Certainly much more than what is represented ingame.

Someday. Give it about thirty years and the tech will be there. Not the game tech, I give that maybe twelve years, the robots sophisticated enough to make a game that big will be in thirty at the earliest.

Winterhold was supposed to be a giant city, rivaling that Solitude and such, but it sunk. Dawnstar should have been much larger if the PGE was correct, not to mention a good trading hub for sailors.

So a bit smaller than the moon. Earthlings would have a fun time there.

Actually the manual says 12 million square kilometers, not miles. The wiki has it wrong.

Tamriel is a continent, you realize? As in, one of several landmasses of a similar scale that tend to be on a planet, separated by oceans? Those things?

This. Nirn is not just Tamriel.

Well, the gods and Tamrielic people would have you think otherwise, but that is a different topic.

I'm with Keyes, it makes Tamriel a more fantastic place if some stuff is left to our imaginations.