Many years have passed. The pony world we knew has been lost. Time has reduced its humble civilizations and elaborate cities alike to nothing. Tattered fragments of old scrolls unveiling the mysteries of the Dark Age now lay buried beneath the earth, upon which the ponies of today wander about in the elegant, technically advanced cities we've never even heard the names of. How did this come to pass? Where in the world of Equestria even are these present locations? The occasional brief aerial glimpses in my little pony, a new generation, provided hardly enough information to begin to wander. We can see that maritime bay is adjacent to a large body of water and Zephyr Heights is built upon a mountain. The home of the unicorns, named Bridalwood Forest, is, well, in a forest. There's only so many forests, mountains, and waters in Equestria, but with the world looking so drastically different from how it did in Generation 4, it still seems almost impossible to place any of the locations. Perhaps before we can determine where modern Equestria is, we should first try to find out how far into the future it is. Since Sonny's father refers to the time period of Generation 4 as ancient Equestria, but most Brony's already know the period 1000 years before the main six as Old Equestria, and since the infrastructure of the Generation 4 ponies is somewhat reminiscent of that of the European Middle Ages, I'm going to refer to G4 as Middle Equestria, and G5 is Modern Equestria. Cantolot was the name of an embellished and widely adored city with a magnificent castle, analogous to King Arthur's Camelot, which hypothetically existed around 500 AD. To me, looking at the castle and the general layout of Middle Equestria again after seeing the Generation 5 movie, does evoke the overall notion that the time period could similarly be dated to more than 1000 years earlier, despite the presence of a fair amount of notably advanced technology throughout Equestria. Of course, the fact that many historically significant events occurred both during the main six as early lives and exactly 1000 years earlier, thematically suggests that Sonny's restoration of Equestria's magic could have potentially occurred another 1000 years after the main six. However, this would introduce some problems considering that allocorns can survive longer than 1000 years, and flurry heart, twilight, sparkle, and princess cadence were not very old during the main events of Generation 4. Unless somehow the lives of all three were cut short before any could bestow her allocorns essence on other ponies, in only 1000 years there would certainly still be allocorns keeping the three pony races united amongst themselves as well as with the rest of the creatures in the world. It was never made known in FIM exactly how long the lifespan of an allocorn is, but contrary to popular belief, there's also no canon evidence for their frequently proposed immortality. If they were immortal, I believe allocorns older than princesses Celeste and Luna could still have been living, considering patterns in equestrian history, but that topic is for another video. Assuming allocorns are mortal and that these three princesses eventually all died natural deaths, modern equestrian must be set at the very absolute least 1000 years later than middle equestria, though I believe 1500 years is a more believable minimum, but can't be too far into the future either. The oldest surviving literature known to man is 5000 year old cunia form carved into clay tablets. Older texts have been lost to war, natural disasters, extreme climate conditions and decay. It seems these things eventually erase most uncopied history older than 5000 years. The fact that such detailed information about middle equestrian life was available for Sonny's father to discover indicates that it occurred more recently than 5000 years ago. Of course ponies have had access to paper for longer than humans, and middle equestria had libraries all over the world, so they certainly documented their past better than humans have. Nevertheless, the story of the main six and their achievement of world peace was one that their unfortunate arrogant descendant seemed to try to bury, and certainly not something they made any effort to preserve. So the fact that Argyle still managed to unveil it convinces me that modern equestria is probably no later than approximately 5000 years since middle equestria. Now you're probably wondering, how will setting a time range help us determine the locations of the three present pony settlements? It narrows down the types of clues that we can analyze to obtain reliable results. For example, across 1500 to 5000 years, civilizations can be found at an abandoned, and entire kingdoms can rise and fall. But there's one thing that can't change much. Topography. Some of the geographical cues depicted in the movie provide insight into the locations of the pony cities, but as I mentioned earlier, not enough to place them exactly. If only there were a map that just showed where the pony cities are with labels. Wait, there IS one. Behind Sunni and Izzy on the officially licensed Follow Your Heart movie poster published by Trans International, there is a crude outline following the shape of our familiar pony world, with the names of all three pony cities posted. Only the artist of this map is, and whether he had any insight into the series developers plans is unknown. But it is an officially licensed product nonetheless. Not all the details line up perfectly, but if we overlay this image against the G4 map, we can see that... Maritime Bay is in the middle of the desert. Okay, some features were moved out of the way so that they wouldn't be obscured by these two mayor's bodies, which is a good thing because I guess we wouldn't be able to see them at all otherwise. Anyway, if we individually align the geographical features on the maps, it appears that Maritime Bay was actually horse shoe bay. Zephyr Heights was cantor lot, and Bridalwood is probably in a previously undiscovered area in the far west. Although the peninsula of the Equestrian continent appears to be truncated in the modern map, which indicates that either the Uncharted Western Frontier was shorter than previously imagined during middle Equestria, or the artist of this picture didn't want to draw. Further evidence that Maritime Bay was horse shoe bay is the presence of these horse shoe symbols on various infrastructure around the town. There's also an inkling that the lighthouse Sunny lives in is on the north hook of the bay, and the waters to the right are the east celestial sea, which makes the fact that Izzy and Sunny traveled west to find Zephyr Heights fit into place since cantor lot was west of horse shoe bay. Now, it is true that Sunny's map tells a different story than I have just described, but I think Sunny's map is just completely wrong. I'd first like to point out that it's slightly more plausible that Izzy and Sunny would have traveled west, stopped by Zephyr Heights, and continued to Bridalwood rather than zigzagging as they apparently would have if Sunny's map were accurate. Sunny also seemed to have gotten confused while trying to follow it during the journey, and later looked down and started talking about an entirely non-existent tree on it to use as a point of reference. Hitchin Pept seemed annoyed by all the walking as well, which makes me wonder if Sunny was taking them in circles with lack of direction. The reality of it is, Sunny's map seems to be ignorant of even the local geography of maritime bay, such that the only feature on it that remotely resembles the bay it describes is Sunny's lighthouse. I can't even compare it to the G4 map because there are no similarities. However, I don't think this was an oversight by the producers of the movie. As history falls further into the past, it becomes muddled with inaccurate information, and considering that the three pony races stopped being friends so long ago, it's possible that by modern equestria, no one actually knew where the other two pony civilizations lay in relation to one another. This could also explain why it took Izzy Moonbo so many years to come visit the Earthponies since it may have been difficult to find the way. Anyway, my conjecture is this map, Sunny has, was either something fictional or created by a pony with an inadequate understanding of geography. It looks pretty old and worn, so Sunny's father probably discovered it with some other historical remains and incorrectly assumed it provided reliable information. Moving on, with all this new information about modern equestrian geography, we can start to see how the unicorn and earth pony races probably migrated to opposite sides of the continent during the previous several thousand years. Supposedly, the three remained on good terms for a time despite having segregated for a mysterious reason, but eventually without an allegor in princess or any strong leader to protect them and remind them of the value of friendship, the races became distrustful of one another once again, just as their ancestors had many times before, and cut contact. By this point, melting pot cities like Ponyville would have been rapidly abandoned as the remaining ponies fled across the world to the respective refuges. I do wonder what happened to the international railroad, though. It seems to just not exist at all on modern equestria, which is weird because zip mentions that the earth ponies and unicorns used to visit Zephyr Heights and trains used to be a question as principal system of transportation. Even if left unmentained for thousands of years, I don't imagine those steel tracks would entirely vanish, yet all we see connecting the equestrian continent is actually really well-mentained footpaths. Maybe since the tracks weren't being used anymore, they became overgrown by forests and forgotten. I also wonder what became of the crystal ponies. Overtaken by fear, their kingdom may have been lost in the snow, their crystal heart powerless against the forces of nature and evil without light or love. There were many other bustling cities during middle equestria as well, such that it would be a shock if all of them died. Maybe ponies still do live in all other parts of equestria and we'll hear about them in the upcoming series to be released in 2022. There are still so many questions to be answered. What do you think transpired that led to the state of modern equestria? Do you think it's believable that Twilight Sparkles' great empire of friendship could finally fall? Do you consider G5 even can into G4? Tell me your opinions in the comments. I'd love to hear them. And also if this video has been interesting to you, subscribe, because this is almost certainly not the last time. I will be covering this topic on my channel.