So its confirmed that there are going to be 5 major cities in Skyrim accompanied by numerous smaller towns and settlements. But there are 8 cities in Skyrim. Which 5 do you think will be made into major ones, or which would you like to see?

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_mfRHW3_0t1o/TUHs4l_oiyI/AAAAAAAAAGM/qgOO9CfkYUw/s1600/skyrim+map.jpg

It's kind of hard to read, but 5 cities are marked in big writing here.

Markarth
Solitude
Whiterun
Windhelm
Riften

Those are the big 5.

What I read in PCGames was:
'each of the 5 big cities in skyrim will have a fancy flair. Riverwood to example is a rural city in which you find roughly built blockhouses inclusive a fitting sawmill. The city Markarth is a massive, in stone built stronghold with buildings standing on vertiginous cliffs and with waterfalls which gives you a breathtaking view. In Haarfingar, a port city at the coast, it's really busy. Even the from the series well known dunmer get an own settlement with a fitting, dark style.'

So we have:
Riverwood
Markarth
Haarfinger
Windhelm

What I'm wondering about is, that only Markarth and Windhelm appear as major cities on the Skyrim Map, so either the magazine is wrong or the map changed significantly after the oblivion crisis.

The magazine seems pretty confused. Riverwood is one ofthe 5 massive cities at all. It is a town (and not even the largest in it's hold, Whiterun is in the same hold (county)), described in another magazine as "A small spattering of buildings" and from the images we've seen, doesn't appear to be more than asingle street or so. Haafingar is the old name for Solitude, which is one of the cities. For the full list, see my previous post. The Dunmer settlement is probably Winterhold but could be a different place.

Cities:

Markarth
Whiterun
Windhelm - largest city
Solitude
Riften

Towns:

Falkreath
Dawnstar
Winterhold - Dunmer settlement
Riverwood

Yeah, that's what I was thinking about too, I hope you're right ...

yup. cant wait to see markarth seeing as how its built on the ruins of a dwemer city

Anyone know what city is confirmed to be the biggest/most populated?

One magazine reported that Windhelm was the biggest, and that looks from the map in the BTS video to be pretty accurate. But I don't think the game will have an IC/Vivec style megacity, more fairly similarly sized main cities.

Ok, thanks.

Markarth
Solitude
Whiterun
Windhelm
Riften

are the big 5 citys

I always loved the stories of the Wolf Queen of Solitude, I'll be so excited to go see it! I'm kinda miffed that so many of the cities seem to have been Sutch'd, but I can see the advantages of fewer huge cities. Makes teh game world seem bigger. Also, cities like Winterhold and Falkreath that were major cities in lore can still be sizeable, they just won't be on par with these 'Big 5.'

Sad that 3 of the major cities were turned into small towns.

?

Solitude really? Solitude is the city built upon that giant rock and cliff where its showing the sawmill in the trailer, and that 1 out of the 5 "GIANT" citys does not look giant at all infact very small..... :turned:

Riverwood is a small settlement or town and its the first town you meet in the game.

Look closer

I'm also looking forward to exploring Markarth.
http://www.uesp.net/wiki/File:SR-img-Markarth01.jpg
http://www.uesp.net/wiki/File:SR-concept-MarkarthCastleExterior.jpg

Falkreath, Dawnstar, and Winterhold are major cities in Skyrim, but they are being shrunk down for the game.

I was under the impression that each of the main cities were around the size of the Imperial city, with massive Windhelm actually being a bit larger. Or maybe you just mean how they're presented? Even though it seemed large, Vivec was actually just a lot of wasted space, where the Imperial City was a much more dense city.