A collection of in-game Pokémon maps

All the maps, in one place.

Published

When trying out my hand at designing a Pokémon region map, I wanted to know what other games’ region maps looked like. There wasn’t any single collection, so I’ve gathered the region maps from each generation here.

Kanto

The Kanto Map from Red, Blue, and Yellow. Routes are displayed in white, with points of interest as small round circles in the middle of routes, and cities as black-bordered pale blue squares.
The Kanto map from Generation I games is remarkable in how little detail there is: Land, water, routes, towns, interest points.
The Kanto Map from Fire Red and Leaf Green. Routes are displayed as transparent yellow, with points of interest as small blue squares in the middle of routes, and cities as white-bordered red circles.
The Kanto map from Generation III games adds terrain to the Gen I map.
The Kanto Map from Let's Go Eevee!. Routes are displayed as white rectangles bordered in yellow, with points of interest as green decagons and towns as blue squares. Ocean routes are shown as white dots on a yellow background. The terrain map is illustrated, showing houses and towns out of proportion. Areas not yet visited are greyed out.
The Kanto map from Generation VII's Let's Go, Pikachu! and Let's Go, Eevee! keeps the stylized rectangular routes, but updates the terrain map with illustrations of buildings around the town markers.

Sevii Islands

Map of Sevii Islands 1, 2, and 3, from Fire Red and Leaf Green. Routes are displayed as transparent yellow on land and blue on water, with points of interest as small blue squares in the middle of routes, and cities as white-bordered red circles. Map of Sevii Islands 4 and 5, from Fire Red and Leaf Green. Routes are displayed as transparent yellow on land and blue on water, with points of interest as small blue squares in the middle of routes, and cities as white-bordered red circles. Map of Sevii Islands Six and Seven, from Fire Red and Leaf Green. Routes are displayed as transparent yellow on land and blue on water, with points of interest as small blue squares in the middle of routes, and cities as white-bordered red circles.
The Sevii Islands map from Generation III games adds terrain to the Gen I map.

Johto

Johto region map in the Pokégear from Pokemon Gold and Silver, with routes displayed in white on green landmasses and as blue dots on blue water. Towns are black-and-orange squares, and points of interest are red diamonds.
Generation II's map of Johto is perhaps less readable compared to the Gen I Kanto map: I can barely see the water route on the west of the map.
The Johto map in the Pokégear from Pokemon Heart Gold and Soul Silver. Routes are shown in white on green landmasses, with mountains shaded brown and ocean routes outlined in blue. Points of interest are green squares and rectangles, and cities are metallic red squares and rectangles that vary in size.
Generation IV's Johto map shows the increased size of towns: some are as large as entire routes! Compared to the Generation II map, the distances between locations have changed as well as the map projection itself. The addition of mountainous terrain markers gives players some idea of the terrain in these areas.

Hoenn

The map of the Hoenn region from the Generation III games Ruby, Sapphire and Emerald uses orange overlays to show routes on land and blue overlays on water, with dark blue overlays in an area where diving is expected. Large towns are marked in red; small towns and attractions in blue.
Hoenn has a mix of water and land routes, and the routes where diving is possible are marked with a deeper blue.
The map has been zoomed in to focus on Sootopolis City, showing an inset map of the town's building layout, but not the paths or terrain within the city.
The inset town maps in the "Zoom View" are interesting in how little they convey: there are buildings here, and some of them are labeled, but there's no indication of roads or paths.

Sinnoh

The Sinnoh map from the Generation IV games, Platinum, Pearl and Diamond, again uses a terrain map with routes overlaid in orange. Towns are shown in red, with different sizes and shapes depending on the route layout.
Sinnoh ignores water routes, according to the map coloring. There are three plot-relevant lakes which overlay the routes, where other lakes underlay the route paths. Note that some routes are two blocks wide.
The Berry Searcher App from the Pokétch in Pokemon Diamond shows a greyscale version of the route map. Against a green background, items are laid out as black-bordered transparent or shaded rectangular areas.
The Pokétch's Berry Searcher App shows the same general map as the main overland map, but without terrain. Only routes and labeled areas are shown in this minimalist three-color image.
This map shows a stylized representation of Sinnoh's geography, as a flat shape decorated with icons for rivers, trees, and mountains. Routes are laid out in white-bordered orange shapes following a grid, floating above the stylized terrain. Cities show some buildings below the route maps, but are generally represented by red or blue rectangles. Water and tunnel routes are depicted as dotted trails made with the same material as the routes. Every location has a pop-over label applied.
The Generation VIII map of Sinnoh in Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl is a higher-fidelity version of the Generation IV map, yet incorporates stylized elements similar to the Galar map introduced in Generation VIII's Sword and Shield. From Generation IV, the routes are represented as a rectangular grid of orange blobs, connecting red or blue rounded rectangles depicting cities. The underlying geography of the Generation VIII map replaces a rough topographical map with a stylized outline of the islands, trimmed to straight lines and 45-degree angles and decorated with clip-art mountains and trees.
This map shows a woodblock print of Sinnoh, twisted at an angle, with the three lakes and a small volcanic island visible. The main town is drawn, and the central Mount Coronet is capped in a cloud. Different areas of the map have coloration indicating their terrain type: temperate, mountain, river delta, mountains, snow. It is very stylized, and no routes are visible at all, though some cave entrances are.
Pokémon Legends: Arceus introduced more "open-world" elements, but with a lower-fidelity map. There are five regions that the player can travel to from the main village; there are no depicted routes to or from those regions.The fast-travel mechanism in the game is not described; it simply is.

Unova

Unova is shown here using the map from Pokemon Black 2 and White 2, the second games of Generation V. It's a radical departure from previous maps, using orange lines to show routes and bridges rather than orange shading to show the area covered by a route. Cities are now green dots circled by orange, with points of interest marked with blue squares.
Generation V's map for Unova is a radical departure from the rectangular route layouts of previous generations. The base map layer is artistically painted, showing details of biome and city that previous generations' maps did not. Routes are straight-ish orange lines, and cities become dots on the map. Points of interest are marked by green squares off the edge of routes, rather than being on the routes.

Kalos

Against a more-detailed topographical map, showing rivers, plains and mountains, cities are shown as large blue dots with one significant pokeball-shaped dot in the center of the map. Regions of interest are drawn as small red dots. Routes are straight lines that connect cities and attractions. Water and land routes are not differentiated, and most of the map is on land.
In Generation VI, Kalos returns to a stylized terrain map of Generations I through IV, but keeps the stylized route lines of Generation V.

Alola

Generation VII's Alola region is composed of four islands spread across an arc of ocean. No routes are marked or visible. Islands are shown as very small-scale top-down imagery, as if taken from a great height using a camera from a plane or satellite.
In Generation VII, Alola drops any sort of map markings entirely. All that's shown is satellite imagery of the islands.

Galar

The Galar map in Generation VIII's Pokémon Sword is very large, stretching well beyond the boundaries of the screen that other games kept to. Its vertical reach shows numbered routes highlighted in red, train routes and mountains, the terrain details of the Wild Area, and notable structures in each town including buildings, Gyms, and mushrooms.
Generation VIII gave up on trying to constrain the map to a single screen. The player can scroll the map freely. Towns are marked and illustrated, routes are numbered in the map, train routes are clearly depicted, and detailed terrain is given in the Wild Area section of the map. It looks kinda like a theme park map.

Paldea

This looks like a high-level geographic map. A roundish island is shown in a blue ocean, with an inaccessible area to the northeast. There are no defined routs, though paths are visible if you zoom in enough. Buildings are visible, and soil type, but there's no indication of elevation levels. In this particular map version, flight destinations are not marked.
Generation IX's Paldea in-game Rotom Phone map is a fine-detailed geographic map, where roads are defined by paths roughly drawn across the green grasses of the land. Specific terrains are defined by soil coloration, but there are no Routes as such. There are only Areas in this game. Image via Game8.
This looks like a low-level terrain map of a small valley: there are buildings and infrastructure visible, but it lacks named routes.
Kitakami is its own secluded valley. Observe the drawn roadways, the cliffs, the waterways, the buildings: there are no defined Routes in this extension to Scarlet and Violet. Image via Game8.
It's a big circle, cleanly divided into quadrants, each with their own biome. This is fundamentally a terrain map of an area without roads.
The Terarium at Blueberry Academy is a vast underwater facility in a paid DLC to Scarlet and Violet. Image via Game8.

Other notes

I’m skipping side games like Pokémon Ranger and Pokémon Colosseum because I’m not as familiar with their styles of exploration or gameplay. The same can be said for Mystery Dungeon, Pokopia, Snap, and Quest.

GO uses the map of our Earth already; it’s not worth commenting on.

Legends: A-Z doesn’t have a world map; it only has a map of a single city. That’s sufficiently different to warrant exclusion from this comparison.