Total number of locations?
 

The officical strategy guide claims that there are 350+ primary locations in Skyrim.

I have found 340 locations sofar. I have put quite some effort in exploring empty parts of the map, but this is how far I got. Anyone closer to the magical 350?

Have you checked Skyrim's map on GameBanshee?
http://www.gamebanshee.com/skyrim/mapofskyrim.php

Impressive work, but it doesn't say how many locations are found.

With the 340 locations I am referring to the in-game statistics.

Wow there's way more stuff at the extreme perimeter than I thought. I'm only 50 or so hours in though. I'm a slooow player.

I have put the index of the GameBanshee map into MS-Word to do some statistics: 343 entries !

I'm still finding new places after 600 hours. I've never purposely tried to find everything though, but this game I'll probably do that. I get a lot of repetition because I've played several different characters and also restarted several games with the same character. I tend to always play the mage questlines, for instance.

To get 600 gamehours since the release you must have played this game for 8 hours per each day, every day.
But how places did you actually find?

They are all listed in the guide, as well as the 200 secondary locations. My copy came with a giant map that shows all 550 locations.

I don't have the guide. Actually I don't see the fun of "finding" locations using a printed map. I prefer exploring the game myself and that's how I have discovered 340 locations. Without peeking to any map or whatsoever.

I remember that in Fallout 3 there were some hidden locations. These would not show a marker on the compass. Just wondering if this also the case for some locations in Skyrim.

I thought I had explored most of the locations. :/

Agreed. In my case, I haven't even looked at the printed map yet.

I noticed when I first started playing I had a tendency to follow every black icon that would pop up on the compass and I imagine I unlocked a lot of locations that way.

Later I tried tweaking the .ini file to disable the compass and I have been deriving a lot more enjoyment out of the exploration aspect of the game as a result. (And discovering far fewer locations, but it's a bit more rewarding this way.)

Yes, that would be the 200 "secondary" locations that do not have a marker.

I'm exaggerating, that's how :) I really have no idea how long I've played because I started with Steam in online mode for the first week, disabled it and played in offline mode until patch 1.3 was released and then turned offline mode back on since then. Every time you change modes, Steam starts over at 0 hours played. I've played 351 hours (I think) since 1.3 was released and I really don't want to know how many hours that averages out/day. How? No kids, a job that is 6 miles from my house, and an understanding wife! I should point out that if I take a 30 minute break for supper, etc. I don't shut down steam, so the hours aren't exactly spot on.

If you're truly curious, I could load saves and tell you how many locations each character found, but the overall total would be much, much higher but the game doesn't track that way, I don't believe.

Thanks for pointing this out. Those must be the unnamed shrines, hunter camps, robbed caravans and so on. Apart from that no marker is shown on the compass there is even any other indication that such a location is special or secondary.

I was just curious about the maximum number of unique locations. No need to upload saves for me. Thanks for the offer anyways.