



1) The aerial view of Sunnydale crater in episode 8.01 shows four tiny vehicles/tents at the edge of the crater.

2) I zoomed out Google Maps until the aerial view of a highway showed cars at roughly the same size, and assumed that the scale of that map would equal the scale of the Sunnydale picture.

3) Combining the two, I estimated the crater in the drawing to be 2.2 kilometers (1.4 miles) in diameter.

4) Sunnydale in the photo looks remarkably like Santa Barbara in the real world...

5) ...Except that Sunnydale County is much less built-up and urbanised than Santa Barbara County is. I blame the Hellmouth.

6) Also, The First's evil power leached the very life from the soil in the countryside around Sunnydale, especially once its protector - Mayor Wilkins - was dead.

7) The picture in Episode 1 was taken from a helicopter flying over Kingman's Bluff due south of Sunnydale, looking north towards the distant mountains.



What does this prove? That we can indeed reconcile Sunnydale being both in the desert and at the coast... I've made the following assumptions:1) The aerial view of Sunnydale crater in episode 8.01 shows four tiny vehicles/tents at the edge of the crater.2) I zoomed out Google Maps until the aerial view of a highway showed cars at roughly the same size, and assumed that the scale of that map would equal the scale of the Sunnydale picture.3) Combining the two, I estimated the crater in the drawing to be 2.2 kilometers (1.4 miles) in diameter.4) Sunnydale in the photo looks remarkably like Santa Barbara in the real world...5) ...Except that Sunnydale County is much less built-up and urbanised than Santa Barbara County is. I blame the Hellmouth.6) Also, The First's evil power leached the very life from the soil in the countryside around Sunnydale, especially once its protector - Mayor Wilkins - was dead.7) The picture in Episode 1 was taken from a helicopter flying over Kingman's Bluff due south of Sunnydale, looking north towards the distant mountains.What does this prove? That we can indeed reconcile Sunnydale being both in the desert and at the coast... Click to expand...

I'm not sure if this was ever answered in any canon way after season 7, but i thought i'd raise the question here...When sunnydale was distroyed at the end of Season 7, do we actually know how but the crater was?All i can think is that it can't have been that bit as Buffy had time to get out of the school, onto a roof somewhere and run through the town on rooftop before jumping onto the bus before it stopped at the outskirts...We know from the end of the episode that it was quite a hefty sized crater...Presumably with the Hellmouth (Sunnydale High) at it's center... so this begs the question, exactly how big was the crater...on my search for an answer I came across this image...Information taken from the person who designed this...Does this look right to anyone else?