Can someone please tell me what the Nine Holds of Skyrim are, and where they are located?

You can use the map on this page for seven of them, the hold Snowhawk is right below the small town Markarth Side which is marked on the map, and Karthwasten is near the border to the west of Snowhawk.

http://www.imperial-library.info/pge3/skyrim.shtml

Also in my signature I have a link to untrue things I made up about Skyrim.

Thank you!

But do you know what's the deal with the Holds of Eastmarch, The Pale, and Rift, since those aren't cities?

P.S. your Skyrim thing looks pretty cool!

i would say that the holds =/= the cities. we know the reach is in the west side, bordering highrock and parts of hammerfell, but iirc thats the only official lore we have.

So basically the same as something like Skingrad = County Skingrad from Oblivion.

I was just confus-ed by Eastmarch and the like...but I assume that cities and borders have fluctuated since the 1st Edition Guide to the Empire was written. Thank you!

i was actually saying the opposite. a hold might contain little of anything (eg. the state of montana) or it might contain several major cities and be very populated (eg. the state of california). essentially, i think knowing the cities will tell you nothing about the holds (contrary to what shades suggested)

Hold is short for Stronghold and the county around the stronghold is the administrative area operated by the stronghold and the king of that county. With the spread of the nine major cities, it stretches reasonability to say that the king of a hold (administrative area) doesn't have a city to rule from. It comes across as a funny gerrymandering trick.

not saying that there is no city, just saying that it may be smaller. the capital of Maryland is Annapolis, a cute Europe-esque town, not Baltimore, the urban shipping and manufacturing centre. yes, its probably pretty likely that the major cities are the capitals of the holds, but that leaves us with several unaccounted holds and several unassigned cities, not to mention the changes in the maps.

anyways, this is all really conjecture. we have very limited information on the location of the holds, so anything you or I come up with is educated guessing at best.

I've got an idea for the changes. It said they made their first cities defensively on the mountains, then later moved down to the valleys below. The holds are named after the first cities that were abandoned, and when all these holds got their own kings (after the empire of Nords broke up), the hold system no longer mattered because they were sovereign kingdoms.