Okay, I'm looking for some candid opinions and head canon on what everyone thinks the population of Equestria is. Just how many ponies do you all think there are?

855234 One. Everyone's just a hallucination of Twilight, who's in a mental facility in Springfield, Massachusetts.

855234 less than 10 million.

I'd say 5 million, maybe 3-4.

It seems to be mostly an agricultural nation, with the cities looking more like old-style buildings and not so large.

Ponies are more like Cylons than mammals. The more correct question is "how many models are there" rather than how many there are in total.

There are many copies...

855245 Oh come now, surely you have a number in your head as to how many there are supposed to be?

855241 Interesting, I'd think the population would be bigger, but then I imagine that Equestria is quite large as well, how big do you think Equestria is?

My thoughts? Seventy-nine million. Big country in my head.

Let's say Ponyville has a population of ~5000 ponies and let's say Canterlot has a population of ~50000

In total, I get the feeling that Equestria doesn't have more than 24-25 million residents given the relatively small sample sizes we've seen

855251 I'd say it's as big as the Great Plains region of the US.

Mississippi, my home, is about 2.5 million and somehwat agricultural. I think the population is really spread out.

My estimate would be around twenty to thirty four million. I can only base this on the fact that there are some major cities in the country.

Well, I think the planet has 1 or 2 billion sentient creatures on it, and I'm going to say that the ponies are in the 250-500 million range, which gives Equestria 100-200 million.

855251
They vat grow as many as are needed. The Lyras all vote with the Lyras, and the Colgates all vote with the other Colgates. And whenever one pony dies, they get downloaded into a new body in a goo vat. With the exception of the main six, or as I like to call them The Final Six, which are the only models of their kind and are the result of sexual reproduction rather than genetic engineering. They can still download and project, but they're unique.

855277 Man, you have some messed up head canon! I knew there was a reason I followed you!

855271 I'd have to say that my estimate was pretty close to yours, that is, a few hundred million ponies in total.

I put it at 17 million. Mostly given the fact that the world population just before the boom of the industrial age was closer to probably 2 billion. USA currently has ~330 million, so 17 million seemed reasonable given time and technology.

855285
I'm mainly just making it up as I go along and throwing as many BSG references in there as I can but it makes a twisted kind of sense given how many background pony copies are running around.

I am going to put it roughly at the 20-22 million mark as a whole of the Pony population all over the world. As they have to share this world with four other non pony life forms. Those being: Minotaurs, Gryphons, Dragons and Changlings. These are ones we have seen at least.

Hard to estimate vs. our n=1 reference data and the odd mix of tech levels; humans hit 1 billion at ~1800. You could argue either way, although I'd go lower because of the lack of mechanisation. Back around AD1000 (ie pre mechanisation) levels were a few hundred million humans globally, which fits with my headcanon.
(All from wikipedia, don't judge me!)

...also that only really works for herbivores; if you add gryphons into the mix (pure carnivores), they'll need much more land for the same population levels -- if only for the cattle farms. Fishing is possible, but that would restrict their location (without refrigeration, anyway). Perhaps they have a deal with the seaponies for food supply?

Damn, I like that idea!

Well, there are certain things to consider:

1. Equestria is definitely pre-industrial, which means that they wouldn't have access to things like chemical fertilizers or pesticides, which means that the amount of arable land required to grow food is higher than it is in today's world. However, due to the weather control, one could guarantee good growing seasons every year, mitigating this effect somewhat.

2. Due to the reasonably proficient health care system, one would expect a comparatively low infant mortality rate. However, traditional demographics would say that a largely agrarian society lacking mechanization encourages a high birth rate (i.e. in order for the economy to expand, one always requires more workers). Lacking technological advancements, it's impossible to improve the efficiency of an average worker, so the only way for a business to expand is to hire more workers, etc. These factors would tend to indicate a growing population. However, countering this, the cutie mark system ensures that every worker is engaged at maximum efficiency in their chosen profession.

3. Based on what we've seen (which admittedly is likely only a small sample of the countryside) Equestria is not a sampling of cities completely surrounded by farmland, which does imply a low population density by the factors above. We also notice that certain factors tied to high population densities (e.g. crime, poverty, etc.) seem to be nonexistent.

4. The governmental system appears to be some hybrid of models, apparently a sort of federalist monarchy, since we have apparently democratic municipal governments with a hereditary seat in Canterlot. Nonetheless, the government appears proficient in pleasing the citizenry and assuring a relatively high standard of living. It seemingly does this without a particularly complicated taxation system. A true income tax requires diligent record-keeping and accurate databases. Managing such a system entirely by hand (even for a modest population) would prove to be a mammoth task.

5. The economy, such as we've seen it, is entirely dependent on physical currency (i.e. there is no concept of credit), likely tying the Equestrian bit to a Gold Standard. If the Equestrian government were required (as must be the case) to hold on to all of its cash reserves as physical currency, the gold would likely occupy several warehouses, or perhaps a Fort Knox-like facility if one exists. The bigger the population, the more money the government would need to care for them, and thus the greater the logistical challenges in storing and protecting it. The same argument would apply to large businesses and particularly wealthy individuals as well.

In closing, I would cap the population at a value no higher than 100 million, although (due to the arguments above) it is likely growing at a modest pace year over year. In such a scenario, it is possible that there would come a critical point where the bureaucratic hurdles of administrating the country without any mechanical aid would begin to weigh on governmental efficiency, prompting either a navigation towards a more efficient social model, or a decline in population.

855285

At least a couple million. I've always seen Equestria as a superpower nation.

Silver out!

I'd say that the only ones are:
Twilight Sparkle
Applejack
Rainbow Dash
Pinkie Pie
Rarity
Fluttershy
Celestia
Luna
Shining Armor
Cadence
Big Mac
Apple Bloom
Sweetie Belle
Scootaloo
Colgate
Derpy Hooves
Time Turner
Lyra Heartstrings
Bon-Bon
Roseluck
Trixie
The rest are non sentinent programs created by Flynn to keep the world filled.

Several tens of millions. Somewhere between 30~60 million. About the same as a medium-sized modern nation.

It operates on different principles and has a completely different history so it's really anyone's guess, but it seems to be really big and have a lot of cities we just never see.

855240 Buffy reference? she asked hopefully.

855259
There is no way Ponyville has 5,000 ponies. I'd say even 1,000 would be a stretch, since we can assume from Hurricane Fluttershy that there are probably only 100 pegasi in the village. Really, I'd guess there were about 500 residents in Ponyville, give or take.

855827 We've got ourselves a winrar!

Any number is based on speculation. We see a small segment of the ponies that dwell in PonyVille. We only see the ones that want to sing or have to be in a particular scene for it not to look so empty. PonyVille is pretty small compared to your usual residential setting. But in my opinion I would say that Equestria is meant to be a representation of north America in pony universe. The population of America is lets say 570 million strong. I would surmise that across the many states the comprise Equestria there would be a number of ponies somewhere in this ballpark. Also the technology in Equestria greatly varies. PonyVille very well may be archaic but other, more extravagant climbs might host steam or even electrically powered contraptions and doohikies.

Maybe more maybe less, it's up in the air to be honest.

I'll just quote what I said in another thread on this subject:

Every indication we have says that Equestria is a very small nation. The Ponyville pegasi can scan the entirety of Equestria "from Fillydelphia to Las Pegasus" for potential threats, in at most, a few hours. Twilight Sparkle can run to the gates of Tartarus in a day and back. Twilight, Rarity, and Spike can follow Spike beyond the borders of Equestria to the land of the dragons without carrying any supplies with them. In the IDW comics, the Mane 6 can leave the borders Equestria in a 3 days travel. Furthermore, Equestria's population density appears to be extremely low, as the vast majority of the terrain we've is unpopulated wilderness. The largest population center we've seen (Manehattan) can hardly have more than a million or two in total population.

If the population were truly in the 80 million range, we would expect vast, vast areas of highly industrialized farms like the American Midwest, yet we see nothing of the sort. Furthermore, pony farming techniques have not advanced beyond the plow and hoe, severely limiting their potential food production. Your assumption that effective control of disease would allow for rampant population growth is false; food is the primary limiting factor in any pre-industrial society. The Roman Empire at its height had a population of around 50 million, and pony farming techniques do not appear substantially more advanced than ancient Roman ones. Using such pre-industrial techniques severely limits the population, and thus urbanization and industrialization to occur.

Finally, ponies do not appear to have children at the rates pre-modern eras do either. AFAIK we have never seen a single family with more than two children, which is replacement-rate population growth at best.

Considering these facts, I would expect Equestria's land area not to be bigger than say, Belgium, with a far lower population density. Because of this, it would be very surprising if Equestria's total population is more than, say, 10 million.

An 80-million population Equestria just doesn't make sense in the context of the show. How, for example, was Chrysalis planning on conquering a Europe-sized Equestria with 80 million ponies with her paltry little force of a few tens of thousands of changelings, at the most? Where's the gargantuan government bureaucracy that should be handling the majority of tasks, as opposed to Celestia personally directing Granny Smith and her family to a location on which she can make her homestead? Where's the huge, industrialized farms that extend to the horizon and beyond? Where's the massive amounts of shipping that an industrial society would have--we've never seen so much as a single freight train or transport caravan. I'm sorry, but the evidence is just not there for Equestria being a huge country with tens of millions of urbanized and industrialized ponies. Such a society would look and feel substantially different from what we get.

If Equestria were large, Celestia can't have very tight control over the Equestrian government. It's not physically or mentally possible for a single person (or pony) to maintain direct control over such a vast population. Furthermore, the business of running such a huge nation should occupy virtually all of Celestia's time--she should no more have the time to personally teach Twilight Sparkle than Barack Obama has any time to teach a student in "How to be President 101". Teaching is a full-time job; just ask any teacher.

the vast majority of the industrialized world's food supply comes from farms like this:





There's no way to avoid this. Any industrialized society will have to use their land in this fashion simply in order to feed such a large population. And yet we never see anything even close to this scale of farming done. Instead, what we get is this:

There's just flat-out no way that farming by individually bucking apples from trees, and having one pony plowing one field, can ever possibly grow enough food to sustain a large urban population. We haven't used farming techniques that primitive since the medieval era.

In addition, we see railroads all the time. There's at least one fairly major railroad running through Ponyville (the fact that it services Canterlot and the Crystal Empire implies that it's part of a pan-Equestrian route). If Equestria were heavily industrialized, we should see freight trains going through there all the time. We should see this:

Instead we get this:

856387

... the population of America is 313 million, I don't know where you get your numbers from.

I'm thinking just under 2 million or so worldwide and 750,000 in Equestria. This is if we're counting all subspecies, including Crystal ponies and Seaponies. The majority of the population would be supported by magically generated/assisted food products in big cities, and the smaller towns would be supported by naturally grown foods by rather stupid Earth ponies.

856318 You, sir, just made my day.

500,000 to 900.000.