Question For the Crowd!

What, in your opinion, are Equestria's most significant locations? (i.e. Canterlot, Cloudsdale, etc.)

Please keep it to... oh, top 7, and excluding Ponyville/the Everfree Forest.

Thanks to all who answer!

~B

Comments

[Silent Whisper]

Canterlot, Cloudsdale, Manehatten, Las Pegasus, Fillydelphia, Crystal Empire, and Rainbow Falls

[CapNTilfy]

1. Canterlot
2. Las Pegasus
3. Manehattan
4. Crystal Empire
5. AAAAAAAPPLEOOSA!
6. Seaquestria
7. Sire's Hollow

Just to clarify, you meant "significant" as in "important in general" or just "important story-wise", because I mostly went with what was off the top of my head.

[Winston]

Canterlot
The Crystal Empire
Cloudsdale
Manehattan
Las Pegasus
Appleoosa

[Anon E Moose]

Canterlot
Cloudsdale
Las Pegasus
Manehatten
Somnambula
Rainbow Falls
Fillydelphia

I'm not counting the Crystal Empire or Mt Aris because imo those are allied city-states.

[Inugami]

Canterlot
Somnambula
Cloudsdale
Ponhenge
Manehattan
Fillydelphia

[Unity Bringer]

Canterlot
Cloudsdale
Manehattan
Crystal Empire
Seaward/Silver Shoals
Hollow Shades
APPPPPPPPPPPPPPPLELOOSA-

[FanOfMostEverything]

Canterlot (government/history)
Cloudsdale (meteorology/industry)
Manehattan (finance/culture)
Las Pegasus (culture/metafame*)
Appleoosa (diplomacy/athletics)
Rainbow Falls (events/tourism)
Seaward/Silver Shoals (trade/tourism, assuming the royal sisters did retire in that one village from "P.P.O.V.")

*i.e. famous for being famous, like some celebrities.

Going off of towns we've actually seen on the show (Fillydelphia has only been used for a canon-shredding, heavy-handed racism allegory in the comics.) I too am treating the Crystal Empire as an allied city-state. With Somnambula, it's not clear whether "Southern Equestria" is a region or an entire other country. Daring Do's publisher certainly doesn't ship there.

[Impossible Numbers]

1. Cloudsdale

   (obvious)

2. Canterlot

   (obvious)

3. Manehattan

   (most technologically advanced section of the country, from what I can tell, and presumably shares political, cultural, and economic significance with its real-world namesake)

4. The Crystal Empire

   (early on, the show suggested its condition was vital to the welfare of Equestria as a whole)

5. The Ancient Castle of the Royal Pony Sisters

   (for historical reasons, and because it's potentially a source of powerful spells such as the Inspiration Manifestation)

6. The Tree of Harmony

   (well, it's a location, technically, and it's not the same as the surrounding Everfree: source of the country's most powerful defence, and has influence over other locations such as Twilight's castle)

7. Tartarus

   I'm cheating a bit with this last one, but basically: anywhere villains are known to or potentially could originate from. The Changeling Hive, say, or Hollow Shades' Well of Shades/Shadows, or the Dragon Lands (it'd be important to know what the giant fire-breathing reptiles are doing).
   However, since this one is technically in Equestria (it's at most a day's walk from Ponyville) and seems to be higher priority, I'm going to narrow this entry down to one location and say: Tartarus, effectively the prison for Equestria's worst monsters.

[Nali]

Hmmm...

Canterlot, Cloudsdale, and the Crystal Empire are all shoo-ins, and of all the real world city equivalents that could pad out a list based on population density alone, Manehattan is the biggest and most frequently referenced and visited and thus the only one I'll give a nod to. Leaving out Ponyville and the Everfree and their related landmarks, not a lot else comes to mind, but skimming some wiki articles gives me a few I can at least come up with justifications for:

Mt. Everhoof: Likely the tallest peak in Equestria, and also the location where Grogar's bell was hidden away in ancient times, which is both historically significant and a story that persists in folklore to the present day.

Ponhenge and Hollow Shades/The Well of Shade: The final resting place of the Pillars of Old Equestria, and the site of the creation and final defeat of the Pony of Shadows, respectively, all of whom also fall into the bucket of figures of historical interest who became part of the fabric of Equestrian folklore.

The Dragon Lands: Of all the non-pony civilizations on the outskirts of Equestria's fuzzy borders, the dragons are the big one, with dragons being regarded with a degree of fascination and fear by basically everyone, between the dragon migration being an annual event and dragons themselves occasionally dropping in to nap.

[Super Trampoline]

urr mums bed last night.

sorry I have no actual constructive answers that other people have not yet provided but I was thrilled to run into you a couple times at Everfree Northwest.