What is the population of Ponyville?

[ggg-2 3,550]

In some episodes, the population of Ponyville is shown to seemingly be over a hundred, but in some episodes, like the end of the season 4 finale, the population seems much smaller.

[Pinkamena-Pills 6,838]

Most likely a little under 100 or slightly over.

[Pastel 7,627]

A few hundreds I guess...

In the season 4 finale, not everypony showed up at the end.

[Jeric 46,834]

I would guess 100-200 (200 more likely) to qualify as a small village.

 

Count all the ponies during the Smile Song. If you haven't driven yourself bat shit crazy not losing count and keeping track of the intentionally duplicated assets ... you may have a good idea of the population.

Edited July 1, 2014 by Jeric

[Zenit 190]

I guess there are 200 ponies in ponyville.

[Silver Letter 1,830]

I think someone somewhere calculated that it was in the thousands but I am not sure exactly what the number was or how they reached it. Just be reasoning alone, I think it has to be around 2,000 or more.  I am basing it on size of the town. Also, would a village with 200 ponies or even less be represented at the Equestria games or would even be allowed to qualify?

Edited July 1, 2014 by Silver Letter

[Fhaolan 4,468]

Ponyville is a very rural town, so a large amount of it's 'official' population will be living on the farms surrounding it. There are hints of a pretty significant total population. They have a large functional open-air marketplace, several luxury goods shops supported by just the residents (Sofa and quill? Really? What's the business model behind that mix of products?), constant construction of new buildings (which may actually be just to keep up with all the monster's demolition, but still) and during the opening credits the town itself goes on for quite some ways.

 

The single schoolhouse done up as a one-room schoolhouse, which is incongruous with the number of students shown. In-class there's only about half a dozen students, while out-of-class there are upwards of a score, indicating that school's outside appearance isn't quite what it seems.

 

Also there never seems to be that many ponies around at any given time. However, again we're dealing with a rural working town, so most of the population is going to be *busy* somewhere and unable to attend the impromptu sing-alongs and dance parties.

 

In my opinion, likely it was a small village at the beginning of the series, but has expanded rapidly since the Elements of Harmony showed up, turning into a tourist town/bedroom community for Canterlot. They're pretty darn close. After all, you can actually make out Canterlot buildings on the side of the mountain when standing in Ponyville, and the travel time between Canterlot and Ponyville seems to be about half an hour to an hour by train. Well within modern commute times.

[Wind Chaser 4,767]

I'd say about 2000 spread over what I would assume to be a large area, with plenty of amenities. The bulk of small, semi-suburban American towns I've researched have populations between four and five figures. I'd err on the higher side considering this town's brushes with history.

The theory of growth has some credence to it as well, after all, Crystal Ponies were first spotted in Ponyville in "Magical Mystery Cure", as well as visibly larger crowds throughout Season 4, which makes me want to say it's probably hovering around 5000, if not more on an exponential scale. Ponyville is also one of three cities to house current Princesses and the only one to house Discord and the remaining bearers of the Elements of Harmony Rainbow Power, so that says a lot to boosting the town's reputation.

 

From a technical standpoint, it looks like DHX has come a really long way when it comes to how the show is rendered. The visual differences between the most recent seasons and the earliest ones seem to indicate an increase in computing power, thus they're able to render larger scenes with larger crowds. Add to that the fact that the cast of recurring characters has grown insanely in that timespan to the point that they are all appearing in the intro and are now appearing regularly in crowd shots of Ponyville.

Edited July 2, 2014 by Wind Chaser

[Snow Frostflame 3,567]

according to LittleshyFIM it could be over 5000

 

my guess is no more than 500

Edited July 2, 2014 by PonygamesFluttershy

[Celli 4,332]

Well, it seems like a small village, so 300?

[Miles 2,512]

Over nine thous- IMEAN.  Probably I'd guess something like 250 - 500 ponies.  Definitely gotta take the farmers into the equation, but I don't think there'd be enough to make it to 1000.  Now, Equestria altogether... that's a different story.  

[Thunderstreak 136]

I would guess it being around 100 ponies. Maybe even less. It's a pretty small town. You'd think you'd see a lot more ponies with a princess and the bearers of the elements living their and all. 

[crisahys 149]

There would have to be 100-200 to qualify as a small village, and usually, the reason why you didn't see any ponies at the end of Season 4 or that Season 4 had lesser of a population is because of Discord's roots and Tirek's short reign and quest for magic. Those disasters could dramatically lessen the population of ponies due to their evacuation. What I hope to see in Season 5 is the ponies population increasing due to the fact that 1. Twilight now has a castle to overlook the town for any trouble and 2. That they may have known the how to recover the village population to a stable number after evacuation. 

[ggg-2 3,550]

^^^^ there was no evacuation. everypony was just warned to stay inside.

[Zekromic 1,054]

A few hundreds I guess...

In the season 4 finale, not everypony showed up at the end.

Well, not like it's easy animating over a hundred ponies in a same scene  . I wouldn't give it over 200 ponies living there, but who knows if it'll grow now that it's officially a kingdom with 6 rulers 

[Pastel 7,627]

Well, not like it's easy animating over a hundred ponies in a same scene 

They don't need to show every pony of Ponyville in every scene. Some ponies have better things to do than to see what's going on in Ponyville (the Goof Off or the Flim&Flam Brothers Song for example...)

Edited July 2, 2014 by Blobulle

[I used to be a stranger 7,988]

Population would also include old ponies and young ponies.

 

We see the Ponyville Schoolhouse regularly has at least twelve students, but we see in other episodes that there are more school-age fillies and colts than this. This is also supported by the fact that Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle are not always indicated to be students at the same school, which would suggest that there may be a second unseen school in Ponyville.

 

From these pictures alone I would estimate that the children of Ponyville number somewhere in the region of 50.

 

If 90% of these ponies have two parents, and 10% only have 1 parent or guardian, that means the family specifically applied to these young ponies results in a population of 50 + (50*0.10) + 2(50*0.90) = 145.

 

Many of these fillies and colts probably have siblings both younger and older, and there may be a nominal population of Ponyville that do not have children.

 

Based on this information, my rough estimate is between 600 and 1200 permanent population in Ponyville.

[Red Cedar 1,406]

From the look of the town, I'd say no more than 500.

I think someone somewhere calculated that it was in the thousands but I am not sure exactly what the number was or how they reached it. Just be reasoning alone, I think it has to be around 2,000 or more.  I am basing it on size of the town. Also, would a village with 200 ponies or even less be represented at the Equestria games or would even be allowed to qualify?

Did you see who they got to compete at the Equestria games? Rainbow Dash had to team up with Fluttershy and Bulk Biceps, two of the worst fliers known in the show, and when it looked like she would be out of commission, she was going to be replaced with Derpy. I imagine every town, whether they have a prayer or not, would be allowed to attempt to qualify for the Equestria Games, but the fact that those were the best options available tells me the pickings were slim and the town didn't have a large population.

[Silver Letter 1,830]

From the look of the town, I'd say no more than 500.

 

Did you see who they got to compete at the Equestria games? Rainbow Dash had to team up with Fluttershy and Bulk Biceps, two of the worst fliers known in the show, and when it looked like she would be out of commission, she was going to be replaced with Derpy. I imagine every town, whether they have a prayer or not, would be allowed to attempt to qualify for the Equestria Games, but the fact that those were the best options available tells me the pickings were slim and the town didn't have a large population.

The town has hundreds of fliers in a town that is supposed to be Earth Pony based (a clear majority). The fact that she used the worst fliers is supposed to be a joke as I see it as she should have picked better pegasus ponies. There is also another contradiction in that most young ponies are supposed to have their cutie marks but many in "Twilight Time" didn't. It means there is never a clear indication in the show that the population is necessarily small. I think it could be relatively high for a village.

[Red Cedar 1,406]

The town has hundreds of fliers in a town that is supposed to be Earth Pony based (a clear majority). The fact that she used the worst fliers is supposed to be a joke as I see it as she should have picked better pegasus ponies. There is also another contradiction in that most young ponies are supposed to have their cutie marks but many in "Twilight Time" didn't. It means there is never a clear indication in the show that the population is necessarily small. I think it could be relatively high for a village.

Just because there were a lot of pegasi doesn't mean any if them were inclined to be in the games. Fluttershy probably did so as a favour to Dash. Bulk Biceps is a horrible flyer but at least had an athletic mentality.

[Silver Letter 1,830]

Just because there were a lot of pegasi doesn't mean any if them were inclined to be in the games. Fluttershy probably did so as a favour to Dash. Bulk Biceps is a horrible flyer but at least had an athletic mentality.

But she didn't want to help raise the water to Cloudsdale. I think it is against Fluttershy's personality to have had her compete in the games. But anyway, having so many pegasus helps to assume that the population of Ponyville is larger than a few hundred.

[Fhaolan 4,468]

From the look of the town, I'd say no more than 500.

 

Did you see who they got to compete at the Equestria games? Rainbow Dash had to team up with Fluttershy and Bulk Biceps, two of the worst fliers known in the show, and when it looked like she would be out of commission, she was going to be replaced with Derpy. I imagine every town, whether they have a prayer or not, would be allowed to attempt to qualify for the Equestria Games, but the fact that those were the best options available tells me the pickings were slim and the town didn't have a large population.

There may be rules in place that prevent the rest of the Pegasi from Ponyville from joining in. We know of one weird rule already, the one that stated that each pegasi could only compete in one event. Really odd, but not that weird compared to some actual RL competition rules.

 

In RL, there *used* to be a rule that only amateur athletes were allowed to participate in the Olympics, which was translated into bizarrely low age restrictions at one point. Say Fluttershy is on the edge of the age limit (since she's possibly the oldest of the Mane 6), then most of the pegasi population of Ponyville would be out of bounds.

 

Not saying that's an actual rule, but RL competitions like the Equestrian Games tend to have tons of bizarre rules restricting entry.

 

Contrast that with Hurricane Fluttershy, where all those pegasi are supposedly from Ponyville. There has to be some reason only a very small percentage of them are available for the Games.

[NightGuard 251]

127 according to an article from Hasbro

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

These are lies...