According to the Pocket Guide to the Empire, Skyrim is traditionally divided into nine "Holds." Of these, the Guide only identifies five: Eastmarch, Winterhold, Rift, The Pale, and The Reach.

The northern and eastern holds (the Guide calls them as "northern and western," but this doesn't match up with the actual geography and is probably a typo) are collectively known as the Old Holds. The Old Holds are dominated by Nords, are the bastions of Nord traditions, and are ruled by hereditary aristocracy. The Old Holds are as follows:

- Eastmarch. On the Skyrim map, Eastmarch is in the central east of Skyrim and is described as "Volcanic tundra." Its only important city is Windhelm.
- Winterhold. On the Skyrim map, Winterhold consists of the northern coast. There are two important cities in Winterhold: its capital, the city of Winterhold, and the city of Dawnstar.
- Rift: On the Skyrim map, Rift consists of the southeast of Skyrim, and is described as "Fall Forest." Its only important city is Riften.
- The Pale: On the Skyrim map, The Pale is a valley in central Skyrim, and is described as "Snow." It doesn't seem to have any large settlements.

The remaining holds are apparently more Empire-friendly, and are governed by elected councils called Moots. So far, I've only been able to identify two of these on the map:

- The Reach: On the Skyrim map, The Reach is in the far west. The Guide describes it as consisting of "canyons and mesas." It is apparently the most cosmopolitan hold. It doesn't seem to have any large settlements.
- Falkreath Hold: On the Skyrim map, Falkreath Hold is in the southwest. It presumably contains the city of Falkreath.

It looks like the three remaining Holds consist of the plains in central Skyrim, containing Whiterun and Markarth Side, the small area between the central mountains and the river delta, and the northwest corner around Solitude, but I can't make out their names or descriptions.

From my estimate the Y value of the cells seems to be about 70, going from how little is missing from what we can see, and the X value is anybody's guess but I'd say it's probably around 100 or so.

In comparison, Oblivion's cell counts are:

X: 133
Y: 88

So the cell count is probably around the same as Oblivion or slightly less. However, if those cities were in Oblivion with the cell counts shown in the map, they'd be tiny - Windhelm would have even fewer cells than Bravil. Since the Game Informer article stated that there were huge cities in the game, I'm going to make the assumption that the actual size of each individual cell has increased. I don't know by how much but it's probably safe to assume the cells are at least a third bigger than in oblivion, meaning the Skyrim will be probably be around a third larger than Cyrodiil.

This is all speculation, with very little evidence to go off of, but it's my best guess right now.

It has also been pointed out that there is a lot less "filler" heightmap this time around as Skyrim is a more perfect square than Cyrodiil was.