I’m fairly certain that we didn’t get an approximation of the number of inhabitants of the Matoran Universe, but I’m not entirely sure. Did we?(The number of just Matoran would be fantastic too)
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As it is, I’m not Greg (obviously); that said, I faintly remember that there were 1,000 living Matoran on Metru Nui, excluding folks like Defilak who went there briefly for business or something like that. 
Additionally, there were a few hundred on the Southern Continent, and less than 200 in the rest of the MU. I’m not dead certain about any of these numbers, but I’m pretty sure that this question was answered at some point way back.
-Azani
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that seems shockingly low, especially if the MU is as tall as the world’s diameter… where did you find those numbers?
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I agree.
The Metru Nui population was mentioned as early as 2004 in some promotional material and the books. As far as the other numbers go, I’m pretty sure that Greg himself has mentioned those way back in either the LMB or BZP days. Regardless, I could definitely be wrong; I’m not sure about any of the figures, with the exception of the Metru Nui one.
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5000 Vahki and 1000 Matoran.
That joke about Takua having an entire Vahki squad assigned to watch him is actually quite plausible.
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Uh…
Glances at a couple of Vahki pages on BS01.
Wow, seriously? Holy crap!
Not a bad easter egg at all. 
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I do recall the 1000 Matoran figure. I don’t recall the figures for the rest of the MU. The latter probably dates back to before we expanded the story universe of the MU, so those numbers don’t hold up now.
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Phew…
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1000 matoran in Metru Nui is right, not sure about the rest. I’ve always thought that was too low a population for a city though, what with the dimensions it’s given and the depictions of skyscrapers; so I wouldn’t pay too much heed to population numbers that have been thrown around if I were you, even if they are Canon
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Topic Revival
So; according to the Metru Nui: City of Legends book, there were thousands of Matoran in Metru Nui. Whenua also states there are thousands of Matoran pods in the Legemds of Metru Nui movie.
However according to the Metru Nui Ministry of Tourism; https://web.archive.org/web/20051222052158/http://www.lego.com:80/eng/bionicle/story/2004/cityguide/default.asp?page=home there are 1 000 Matoran, 5 000 Vahki, 6 Toa, 2 Dark Hunters and 1 Turaga (also suggesting that there in fact 1006 Matoran before the Toa Metru became Toa.) This lines up with the 1 000 number we have for Mata Nui, and it’s a more reasonable number for the Great Cataclysm.
However, I will say, 1 000 never made sense with Metru Nui’s size. But if there were thousands, were all Matoran saved in the Great Rescue?
So Greg, once and for all, can you give us a definitive answer, 1 000 or thousands? And would that same number apply to the amount of pods?
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Simple answer. 1000 was the figure I was given when BIONICLE started. When they decided to move the action to a city, I think they realized that a city with only 1000 people in it would look pretty sparsely populated, so they upped the number. Just a retcon.
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Does that mean there were thousands and not just 1 000 on Mata Nui as well?
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It would follow. I think they just didn’t feel they were going to be doing crowd scenes in MNOG that reflected that, and they wanted to keep the idea of smaller villages.
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Topic revival… again. Sorry.
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So with thousands of Matoran on Mata Nui, this would mean that the airships were large enough to fit thousands of Matoran pods, the Toa Metru had enough Toa Energy to awaken thousands of pods, after healing Graalok and putting part of their energy into stones, and all these pods were constructed within a year and a half? Correct?
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In MNOG, there is a scene with all the Ga-Matoran and Nokama, with the exception of Maku, being trapped in a hut sunken by a Tarakava. At that time, there were only supposed to about 12 villagers, but already with the 1000 number, there would have had to be 160+ Matoran in that hut, and now, possibly more than a thousand. How do a thousand Matoran fit in a single hut?
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Yes, because if you want to say there are more than 1000 Matoran on Metru Nui, which the movies certainly imply, then that is how it has to work.
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You can’t be worrying about stuff that was shown prior to the retcon, because there is no way it is ever going to be made to work. MNOG was made before how many Matoran were going to be on Mata Nui was even thought about.
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Random thought: what if this was only all the Ga-Matoran who were in Ga-Koro at the time? We see during the Onu-Koro chapter of Mnog that traders will often go to other villages, and Hahli goes all over the island in MNOGII. Perhaps Macku is the only one who knew Ga-Koro was attacked, not the only free Ga-Matoran.
Just an idea-thought to explain away the discrepancy from the retcon.
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Doesn’t go a long way to solve the issue. Feels unreasonable to say only about 10% or less of the Matoran were in the village.
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Seeing as there are mentions of outposts in Ta-Koro and Ko-Koro that are not parts of the main villages (as well as various other structures found around Mata Nui), at least some of the Ga-Matoran may simply have been in other places within Ga-Koro at the time. There is also mentions in MNOG and in one or two other places where Jaller mentions Matoran under his command having died defending the Tren Krom Pass. Thus, the total number of Matoran could be lower than when they first arrived on Mata Nui.