Here's a version of the latest one which someone has written over with at least partially incorrect info. Anyway, as you know, Markarth is where I put Karthwaasten, the city were I put Markarth on another inspection may not be there at all and I may have been imagining things when I saw it. You'll notice a few changes in my estimates of the towns as well. Oh, and the region in the Northwest that I haven't coloured is Pine Forest.

EDIT: Oops, forgot to link you. http://skyrimguild.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/Skyrim-map.png

Cool! This one seems to have gotten the placement of Markarth Side more accurately; I definitely see a square there and you aren't just imagining things.

I am fairly sure that the cities in Oblivion were designed as such to give overall impression of wealth since it is suppose to be the cities surrounding the capital of the empire, tho that would be with the exception of Bravil what was purposefully designed with houses that were segmented into flats. Rich people don't live in cramped houses... that said, why one of the thief guilds members lived in a large 3 story house is hard to answer. The Imperial City itself had large terraces what gave a fair number of houses or shops, but even that misses one thing, with the exception of Leyawiin, why do all the cities look like they were made by a single unimaginative contract company? Because while styling can be similar across areas.... those cities look more like their houses and infrastructures were more cloned... why does my house look exactly the same as the guy who lives on the exact opposite side of the city?

But I don't think ultra realistic city styles would suit TES that well, the five cities are suppose to be larger then the cities seen in Oblivion and well, I was personally hoping each would be larger then the Imperial city, because to be honest, even the Imperial City felt a bit small for what it was meant to represent... It felt more like a small town then a city, let alone the most important city on the continent

I just looked at the original map, and yeah, pretty sure there is. I'd guess that's Karthwaasten then, even though there's only Dragonbridge North of Markarth (side) on the maps I've seen. Well, Skyrim does have at least a few things in rather different locations to older maps.

http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1172374-simple-ways-to-make-cities-more-alive-interesting-and-bigger/
Here's a thread where I discuss ways I think a city could be made to SEEM bigger without being so. I personally like having more compact cities, although fair enough that the upper class should have more open space.

Even if my anolysis was accurate, they may have expanded the cities since then, so who knows?

Yeah, we can certainly expect some changes from the old maps.
Every game up to this point has changed the previous topography pretty extensively; Oblivion removed the entire city of Sutch, and the changes to Vvardenfell between Morrowind and the preceding games are too numerous to count (although that's perfectly natural, as the lore wasn't very thoroughly fleshed out until Redguard).

Oh, by the way: If you ever update the map again, be sure to note the location of Saarthal, on the coast just south-west of the city of Winterhold.
It's the oldest and most important human city on Nirn, you know.

Ooh... I did not know about this. What map is it found on?

You can make it out on the original wall-map, if you look closely..

Lore-wise, it probably won't be present on any old maps, because it according to the Third Pocket Guide to the Empire, it was only recently unearthed by an archeological expedition. That's recent to the timeline of Oblivion, of course.

I've circled it http://img840.imageshack.us/i/saarthal.png/

That's cool. Speaking of the Pocket Guide, have you read the one about the Imperial City in 1st edition? It sounds so awesome. Wish we saw that in Oblivion, though it would be pretty damn hard to make.

No, you can--not every single part of them, but a lot. Also, consider the terrain. When you take a napkin and scrunch it together to make "mountains", the apparent size of the napkin shrinks, but the size is still much bigger if you spread it out.

Of course! But to portray the Imperial City the way it's described there would be a game all in itself. A game that Bethesda should totally make.

Agreed.

I read/heard somewhere that a lot of the "Holds" in Skyrim were lost in the Oblivion Crisis. At the time, I didn't know what they were. Thanks for the information.

Oh, I don't doubt that cities can be made to look bigger, I have a fair understanding on those types of things, however, Skingrad still felt just as empty as the other cities despite it being a more compact city then any of the others. There are so many ways to make a city feel more alive then oblivion did, then again oblivion isn't a game that has you inside of cities for all that much, with the exception of the arena... I am hoping Skyrim has much more interesting cities. The best way to do it would be active city centers... a large/open city square where you have a lot of NPCs (venders, beggers, street performers, and random NPCs) while having tighter side residential streets would create a more alive city, that said, I wouldn't want it like Assassin's Creed where you are constantly pushing your way through people no matter where you are (even out in the country side.... for BLEEP's sake). People should gather up more tightly at points of interest and less densely to let you travel around.

To top of the city square, it's nice to have around the square accessible shops, pubs/inns, restaurants too... Still, by the sounds of it, most that stuff is already done or designed in skyrim, so have to see what it is actually like. I am still sure in an interview they mentioned 5 cities that were larger then those of oblivion and about 20 smaller towns... It could be that some are still under construction or being consider tho, so it could a more accurate answer isn't there yet.

Yes. I think that's a good way to do it!

I don't mention the mountains in a negetive sense really, its just from what I've read/heard these mountains are supposed to be obstacles (like in NV) rather than every one of them being an area of interest, I hope that Like real life moutains, the ones in skyrim's have their niche area's and habitats if one mountain can keep us entertained with all it has to offer with its winding paths and ducks and dens, then that more than compensates for lack of wander area


also most of Skyrim's Cities are -ancient- massive should be an understatement when describing these areas

I know, I mentioned some of that stuff in the thread I linked.

Someone said that a recent OXM magazine had Todd saying that there is going to be a "Dunmer village" in eastern Skyrim. so yeah I bet there are going to be more than enough villages.