Pokemon Map Headcanons

pkmn map concept (this is where I had every reigon with all this text on the map then made the maps blank and later realized that I should've kept the labels when I made the maps blank but OH WELL lol): not to scale at all, all the map qualities on wikis are vastly different lol

Kanto

mix between Japan and America ala early localization and ace attorney style Team rocket is still mafia styled, technology is in the 90s. Red has a geocities page. Sevii islands is a blend of cultures between various islands since there’s a lot of them in Pokémon canon. Religion is mostly centered on either the bird Pokémon or Mew, considered the mother/father of all Pokémon. No comment on if that makes them catholic or not.

Johto

more traditional Japan than Kanto (I feel like that’s always been the case for Johto.) Technology has budged a bit more. Worship is focused mostly on Ho oh and Celebi, Lugia tends to gain more cults. Lugia’s title is the Stormbearer. There’s not really any sort of control for where the kanto- johto line is aside from a huge marked rock that people sometimes move to say that they traveled between kanto and johto in a day. johto kanto (very obviously connnected) white city from stadium (idk exact location but somewhere in johto kanto area) it's based on IRL Japan so my alignment's might be horribly wrong I failed geography class lol White City (stadium): since stadium games only played up to gen 2 before colosseum I’ll say it’s between kanto and johto again, possibly near Violet City accounting for earl's pokemon academy being the exact same thinig that's in violet city

Hoenn

Australia. I kind of had no headcanons on Hoenn until I came up with the idea that it’s just way more untamed and weird. (But it's obviously still Japan...) Technology is way more advanced but the company in charge (I forgot the name, Stone company) refuses to import it to other reigons. Grab bag of beliefs and clash between progress and worries of over expansion destroying nature. Team aqua is less pirates and more disgruntled fishermen, team magma is less geeks and more disgruntled farmers. Idk where I read this but hoenns main conflict was based on a real life event in Japan where farmers and fishermen fought in concerns for rapid expansion, but the agricultural thing didn’t translate well so people just think their motivations are stupid because too much water would flood everything and too much land would make it impossible for things to be sustained. hoenn is connected to kanto and Johto.(based on sevii islands meteor event) something in between johto and kanto as well hoenn is at the tail end of japan if IRL connections are taken to account plus there has to be a connection because of the sevii islands wireless connection quest.

Sevii Islands/Spinoff Containment Zone

tcg islands are also here, considering calling this the spinoff island containment zone if great rocket is here that's how they took over sevil, with card games. very tiny sevii islands (said to be located south of kanto) orange islands (might as well be in same area) none of these are remotely to scale on this map, driving me nuts. Fiore: Close to Hoenn but not to Orre. Far from Sinnoh because of the manaphy event. Almia: Above Sinnoh since their manaphy event isn’t as far. Oblivia: said to be located south of both fiore and almia, but also features Arceus worship. I’ll plop it by alola. TCG: Renamed as southern islands based on Tcg card set. At this point there’s an entire spinoff island peninsula. Ransei: below Sinnoh. An entire island shaped like Arceus and no one questioned it??? Rumble exists in universe as a collectors toy unless I headcanon that they can sometimes come to life ala Toy Story.

Spinoff questions: what is fiore connected to??? is it close to hoenn because it's gen 3 pokemon or is it close to hoenn because that was the latest reigon out fiore is said to be far away from sinnoh but it's never said how south oblivia is from it so for all we know they could literally be right next to each other (AKA I had no clue where to put it on the map) oblivia from rangers 3. guardian signs feel like an anime concept/ weird historical lore plus deoxys event makes it feel like sevii Filler space where I post other weird official artwork stuff (got cut from the OG map and I just moved everything in closer) They casually had time travel working in the 90s and only used it to get pokemon sinnoh and johto have some connection because of the sinjoh ruins but nothing in between kanto exists in universe yet. So there's a whole reigon that's been missing for years presumably. Perfect for fangames. ransei a giant reigon shaped like arceus lol I just plopped it by the other spinoff islands. almia lines up with the tail end of sinnoh that's inaccessible + heavy gen 4 emphasis/ manaphy event. Fiore is said to be further away. I should probably have moved the TCG Puzzle Continent on the map because I just learned that it's analogous to South America but it's too late now

Sinnoh

Russia based on the snow/ artics. Worship is heavily placed on lake trio, “Hisui” (which is lord Sinnoh based on Legends), and Arceus, the creator. (Note: Pokemon religion is kinda interesting because in previous games like Gen 1/2 there were things in mention to God/Gods . But they were taken out for translated versions. The Channeler class is a shrine maiden/miko which is based in Shintoism, Buddishm was also a likely religion in the pokemon universe for early iterations. As later games follow though most of that religious mention gets erased. Since Reshiram and Zekrom are possibly based on Taoism based on the fanname... that's more of a philosophy than a religion though, I think? Note: Look into that kind of thing.) Giratina the renegade has some worshippers alongside the Nightmare and Dreammaker but they’re more obscure. Shaymin is basically a regular mon but just rare species wise if the anime is counted so idk where I’d put it. Heatran has gained a memetic cult following because no one recalls it otherwise. Sinjoh ruins dictates that it needs to be close to Johto as well so I’ll say that Kanto-Johto and Sinnoh are all near each other in proximity Note: This is literally canon because Oak says they're all in the same country. And what country is that, it's IRL Japan. Berryless moment. in Pal park professor oak mentions that kanto johto sinnoh and hoenn are all part of the same reigon which is another piece of evidence for them all being analogous to japan other reigons make their referential country pretty blatant

Unova

At this point I move onto the Unova side of the map and start immediately getting weird. what war did Lt. Surge fight in anyways Hypothetical American Country that will never be revisited in Pokemon Lore if he was stationed in IRL Japan was it woud've had to either been the gulf war or vietnam OR WW2 which is probably why it was never mentioned in pokemon again

tri state area but mostly New Jersey C gear usage is prevalent but phones have started being a thing too (not rotom phones though, team plasma vetoed against it.) Legends aren’t really worshipped because it’s the reigon of the free, man Reshiram and Zekrom don’t really have worshippers since they were forgotten during the war, like one is sitting in a museum and the other was still buried in the castle. The weather trio are seen as pests in areas of Unova but Landorous has a shrine simply to dissuade said pests Also most legends in Unova are openly hostile (swords of justice), hidden entirely (Victini and Meoletta) or a bio weapon (Genesect) It’s technological progress Vs upholding tradition but rebellion is American flavored, so let’s disregard all that. The culture is so blended that following trends is the norm. Probably the most capatalistic hellscape of all of them

Kalos

France and Paris but also a hint of other European areas (I basically headcanon galar as being right next to Kalos even though I haven’t played galar so idk if it’s one to one.) The very funny part of the map notes I had but it might be unreadable is that all the note says is: ITS JUST EUROPE LIKE IT's 1 TO 1.

As I've now played a galar game, I want to headcanon that the minor league is more or less a thing where the gym types that aren't represented get jealous of the gyms that are in the league. The league itself is basically galar's economy and whenever it isn't happening since it's quarterly is when the minor league actually gets to do things and the minor league DOES NOT require endorsements, which is how people can get themselves promoted to an endorsement to the major league tournament if they win.

Alola

No headcanons for location. Alola is pretty diverse already in the games. I’d like to say if there was a map that alola would be somewhere below kanto and johto. Kalos and Unova are close as well, so the only one I don’t have a designated spot for is Sinnoh.

Pasio

Pasio: Artificial island made for PML and doesn't have any set location to any other reigon... technically a set of artificial islands but I’d like to say their location is next to Alola. They say that there’s multiple PML badge leaders so I think they just stick to the types that are in the story. That means that it’s grass flying normal ice and ground. Some unlucky tourney goer is going to get flattened by Rival Green as their final challenge unless he decided to not book that.

Takes place after mainline games but there’s also a chance hoopa is just pulling everyone from different times and spaces. I don't know what mainline game in particular since the timeline is kinda messed up because if it's alola then red and green should be their alolan age but i guess those forms aren't as marketable... taking the easy (coward's way) and saying that this is the mega timeline equivalent of PWT and it takes place during the B2W2 era (if I keep thinking about this I will turn into a wild animal.)

Orange Archipegalo

Said to be south of kanto and johto in lore. So maybe it’s like. Right next to sevii islands? Follows whatever the anime does, I haven’t watched this season in years. First noted regional variants spotted here (even if they were anime exclusive and have only ever shown up in fan games.) Orre

Orre was inspired by Arizona. Most of their imports are said to be from Johto and Hoenn but I'll also throw in Alola based on proximity location. Most people from Orre are trying to leave Orre and consider it a dead land. It's obviously getting better by XD time but if I had to use a word for this region it would be "grimy." I have made a new headcanon based on the map thing and consider Orre, Alola, and Unova to be a part of this hypothetical large country that I will sarcastically refer to as Big Unova. Just in case there's ever a reigon that they decide to base on America again.

North Pole (Santa real in the pokemon world)? Alola is analogous to hawaii Orre as Arizona Unova is based off the tristate area Unova isn't 1 to 1 with the US so I propose that the in game unova is a part of a larger unnamed country that I'll call BIG UNOVA.

Mentioned/Potential Reigons in Canon

gameboy also had the weirdness of pokemon and IRL animals coexisting/ being a recent discovery No man's land, Tiksi, and Russia by that one Sliph Co grunt Mew was found in south america(?)/Guyana/ French Guiana? (Note: IRL there are multiple places named Guyana.) Dex entry stuff? Arcanine and China Deliberd mentions mt. everest African mask in Unova + Kenya from Johto Poliwrath and the Pacific Ocean Ponyta being able to jump the eiffel tower The moon landing implies that there was a pokemon Space Race

What other reigons have been mentioned but never actually confirmed to exist Back in Early Days of Gen 1 when pokemon was still just regular earth we had: Raichu electrocuting Indian Elephants (changed to be Copperjah) Greece is in PokeSpe but only in the early english translation because of a lever thing Tom Sawyer is also mentioned in early pokespe english translations which is weird to think about Regice's body is said to be made up of antarctic ice trying to not dip into too much anime territory stuff since a lot of those locations are definitely their own thing for when the anime is in filler hell so it makes no sense to start putting down the towns Ultra space doesn't fit onto the map because that starts getting into multiverse nonsense.

Hypothetical Reigons based on early dex entries

India Russia China Africa South America Greece Other parts of the US (South, West, Florida) Possibly Canada

Misc/Other Ideas

By the way, Regular IRL Earth exists in pokemon canon as a seperate existence because of GO Team Rainbow Rocket Giovanni either gets into Pasio (Masters) or GO and creates GO rainbow rocket What this means for actual pokemon lore I have no clue because it seems like Spark and Willow and Blanche and Cadena are real people too...? GameFreak has been cameos in multiple games plus the same goes for TCG guys and Imakuni. Youtube exists in some form/ Twitch because of Iono.

Paldea has it's whole paradox thing going on where people were like "is it imagination or time travel?" and the in game explanation is apparently parallel timelines so there's some world out there where robot pokemon and caveman pokemon roam the earth but that's also dipping into multiverse territory OG Kanto anime author's notes said that pokemon appearing was only a very recent thing and IRL animals used to be all over the place and that professor oak had found somehing out that he didn't like. also the scrapped t rex movie. obviously that's no longer canon but it's an... interesting aspect for the gameboy/early anime universe.

Technically only some things should exist in one timeline (Gameboy or 3DS) versus the other but that would be incredibly weird to discern since that is also weird canon wonky territory. Consider this as a "all the games happened on one timeline" map.

Technology in the pokemon world is almost on an IRL basis with smartphones and smartwatches and tech being replaced but then the pokeballs themselves used to be based off magic fruit and shrinking powers. Everything about Rotom phones. I'd say it's gone to more magic tech than the gadget types that we had in other reigons... Unova's Xtransciever was really the last time we had some kind of watch type of thing.

There's also a multiverse in the aspect of multiple game versions and 3rd editions, team rainbow rocket has versions from timelines where the protags failed, the various adaptions like Special and the like also make up their own seperate universes The anime also had photobombs in Pokemon GO which pretty much means I'll give an arbritary multiverse thing I have going on for my pokeverse at least

Universe 1: Gameboy Games/Gen 1 and 2 Spinoffs Universe 2: Gameboy Advance Games+ Gen 3-5 Spinoffs Universe 3: 3DS and Switch games (it gets weird because of the mega evolution stuff zinnia mentioned) and Ultra sun and moon happen Universe 4: Everything is the exact same except original sun and moon happen because 3DS is when they started leaning on multiverse theory Universe 5: Pokemon Go Shennagins Universe 6: Anime Shennagins. Technically the anime has its own multiverse because of various dimensions and having a movie canon but I don't care. Universe 7: The non canon universe. Fangame heaven.

I've never played much of the GB TCG games or had much interest in the pokemon TCG but I was doing research to revamp my map headcanons where I mentioned that there was like a TCG island peninsula? Anyways, there's actually a lot of lore to some earlier stuff in the TCG based on executive balancing and wanting to have some unique ideas and I'll be mentioning some of them in case anyone ever wanted to make like, a TCG 3 or something. The TCG also had a few stuff like shadow pokemon before shadows in dark pokemon and type variants in the form of delta pokemon. In fact, as I witnessed, there's actually a lot of lore to it based on this video that showed up in my recommends from DeltaSeeker and looking through the bulbapedia pages: Delta lore

There's a few places like the southern islands, puzzle continent, parallel worlds, and holon, then the games exclusively have TCG island and the GR island. The southern islands came with a special set of postcards that were for tropical island and rainbow island that came out during the Neo era. Parallel worlds was about a clash of nature and technology having the two worlds clash because of space time rifts according to the backstory and images. Two mega mewtwo start fighting. The puzzle continent has crystal pokemon which are a variant but they aren't like the orange islands crystal onix, unfortunately. They could be though. Plus it's got the title of "the town on no map" in the aquapolis expansion, isn't that neat. Places like the Split Earth and Mysterious mountains both being tied to the legendary birds(gen 1) and ho-oh. There's a bunch of other stuff like undersea ruins and mystery plates and a bunch of stuff that is probably never going to be elaborated on again.

Holon having "power spots" kinda sounds like the galarian dynamax spots, right? Apparently the delta pokemon were caused by them absorbing energy from electromagnetic waves from the research tower that people made to harness and study the power spots (but there's also a spot that has natural delta species so I guess they can be a natural phenomenon.). They made a village to study the energy that causes the different type effects. Dark Pokemon (the Team Rocket corrupted ones) are kinda a precursor to shadow pokemon but is the dark celebi from movie 4 meant to reference that? likely. Light pokemon are basically purified pokemon. Basically depending on how the pokemon was raised they'd be either "bad" or "gentle" based on the OG JP names. I'm not sure if there's more than one power spot or just the mirage forest where the village was built. There's a bunch of other stuff like crystals on an island that sounds like terrastalization before it existed. There's a cave in the mirage forest that's like a power neutralizing monolith, a weird ring of fire that never stops, and a huge tree in the forest that could be like a world tree. There's a lake with a shiny gyarados too!

This Mirage Forest might be another place where Mew was around since it has a few holon related cards (like Guyana which is South america/Faraway Island/ French Guiana because it turns out the whole Guyana thing is a bit confusing when there are multiple places named Guyana when they were all a part of the same like government reigon.) Also Dark pokemon and Dark types were obviously different, like Dark Tyranitar was a fighting type. TCG has a few different types because obviously having like the 18+ types pokemon has isn't as feasible for a card game. Parallel worlds kind of reminds me of paradox pokemon since it has the concept of a natural world and a technological world colliding. The rest of the stuff you need to make up though since it came at one of those times where there wasn’t like heavily established tight consistent pokemon lore (holon was sometime during gen 3.)

For the game exclusive islands, there are clubs that are basically the equivalent of gyms and type specialists. Feel like making them all trainers is kind of taking away how weird it would be if there was a TCG yugioh like story going on. And there clearly could be one considiring how the invasion of team gr has team great rocket and the final boss guy is using mostly dark pokemon... neat.

Every single time I think about the pokemon timeline where they want to consider certain games canon with certain time alignments (RSE=FRLG), (DPPT=HGSS), (BW2=XY), and so on I always end up asking more questions that will never be answered because of how there's no actual "definitive timeline" because they keep dodging the question after that official tweet was deleted and no one truly ages outside of select characters and select games having a defined time period like Gen 1 to 2 and Gen 5.

First I go “what’s with the rapidly changing technology in between those games though” which makes me wonder if there was some kind of technology discrepancy in between the different regions. Like, FRLG’s excuse was that it was a 1 to 1 copy of RBG minus some changes and it wanted to capture that nostalgiac feeling. But then the Sevii islands is connected to RSE which is like… I know it's with a meteor, but was Devon just hoarding their more advanced technology... I cannot speak for LGPE’s placement on anything because the game itself has some time screw stuff by making Green and Red and Blue simultaneously exist with the new protag and Trace but also they apparently didn’t handle Rocket, and Mina from Sun and Moon cameos when Sun and Moon itself is canonically like… happening when the boys are in their 20s. How old is that girl?

Pokemon Masters says “we’re not dealing with any of that, everything’s canon, this is it’s own canon” which is really funny because do I just assume Red and Green are 17+ in that one because that’s what their age would be when BW2 takes place and that's likely when the Pasio league takes place as I think it's the Mega equivalent of the PWT? (PWT being fanservice and not having anyone age there is one of those things where I go "they were not considering the sliding timeline, huh.")

The Animation and Pokespe ignore this by saying that everything happens as it releases which is reasonable enough. I also have my own headcanon timeline I posted about on dreamwidth and a whole Red Green age timeline thing. Battle Tree has Wally and Cynthia look the same though, which again, unless it's really good skin care those two should be older looking!

Then there’s ORAS establishing the ultimate weapon timeline split and being before the Kalos games study mega evolution, which retroactively makes sycamore look fraudulent. (LGPE having it also does this, but I’m just being pendantic ) ORAS itself also brought attention to an entire multiverse (which was always there, it just got more defined with DE) which then got followed up in SUSUM with ultra wormholes and Fallers and Rainbow Rocket and then total radio silence. What the heck, don’t just drop that plot point off, jeez!

I had two other posts on this on Dreamwidth but for the sake of spacing I'll just summarize the dates/timelines

Gameboy timeline: 1996-1999 (based on release dates and porygon) GBA-DS timeline: 2002-2017 (based on game consoles and the HGSS-BW baby.) 3rd version games have their own respective timeline as well. 3DS-Switch timeline: 2002(?)/2009-20XX (based on LGPE and Mina's age, ORAS timespan references, and general headcanon.) None of this is like ever relevant to anything I ever write, I just wanted to put it out somewhere.

Visualization of the timeline. I tried explaining my timeline headcanon meta placement by considering the lack of cross game compatibility. I also tried to put them in chronological order. US RB and JP RG technically should have a seperate Blue on the 3rd game timeline but since there's virtually zero differences in story content they can stay as is.


The direct reason why kanto and johto feel so vastly different even in supplemental material is because they were the regions directly worked on by the creator Tajiri and everything else subsequently was handled by Masuda. The lack of cross compatibility meant that gen 1 and 2 pokemon truly could not be transferred into later games until the addition of virtual console for pokemon bank. So you can truly consider Gen 3 as a reboot of the Pokémon world and timeline, FRLG follows that self same logic. A few other things I had to think were "what gen was this introduced in and did it update to have new generations?" Pokemon Quest does have all generations... but only in the CN server. Everyone else just has gen 1 versions.


Having the GBA and DS timeline be cut from 3DS is a bit silly since those games are canon to the 3DS timeline when considering how Burnet who was in Dream Radar which connected to BW2 then went to Alola but since pokemon decided to have a multiverse/timeline split where it's like "mega evolution exists" or "mega evolution doesn't exist", this means that every GBA and DS game will have the same timeline displacement as the Gameboy games solely because they don't have the gameplay mechanic. There's a reason ORAS is considered the canonical one over RS now, it's because it basically took it's place role wise.

(LGPE does not follow this logic as it is a remake of pokemon Yellow and therefore a "what if" scenario. Unless Chase and Elaine and Trace all show up in a mainline game instead of Masters (add trace to Masters) it's true timeline placement is dubious because every game still considers Red as the true protagonist for Kanto.) Legends Arceus is basically the most "past" game in the timeline. Conquest is a crossover between Nobunga's Ambition and Pokemon so it's without a doubt noncanon.


Only games that are truly timeline weird are GO because it takes place on like, real earth, but pokemon have shown up, and USUM RR Giovanni is there, but he's also in Masters, but Masters is just an "anything goes" story. SuMo have no timeline placement because USUM are considered the canon ones. Other circumstantial evidence is Pokemon transferred from other games as being considered as coming across time and space or from "a distant land" (Orre has this weird middle child treatment where there is not much acknowledgement for it or its ideas despite Shadow Pokemon making a continuous appearance in spinoffs after it like shadow mewtwo and shadow pokemon in Go).


"Pokepark is not canon to mystery dungeon" okay but you'd rather take the wiiware spinoff where the major conflict is the characters fighting over a cookie?

Anyways, here’s a collection of multiversal stuff that was before ORAS that I’ve been gathering.


Every save file and cartridge is it’s own universe by technicality because how can the worlds be shared if everyone can go through the same story and get the same legendaries (this also applies to every different version as well). The Game Boy games are a different timeline compared to their remakes (note that some transferred Pokémon come from a different time and space). Black and White having different opelucid cities and postgame areas. the Entralink/ Dream World. distortion world. RS for having the different teams and then E for having both show up. Pokémon Mystery Dungeon (possibly a universe where the meteor was sent). Every spinoff material like the various mangas and the animation (which has it's own multiverse) alongside every spinoff game unless it's specifically connected to main timeline (Rangers is in the main timeline by Manaphy Egg.) Pokemon Go is it's own universe. Giovanni from Rainbow Rocket shows up on real Earth. The anime characters make photoshop cameos at one point.

Here's my Pokemon OCs. Pokemon OCs This one's for the protags. Pokemon Protags This one's for the actual writing with these headcanons! Project Pokemon This one's for the more in depth look into Glitch Users. Pokemon Glitch Users