Map View

The Map View displays the locations of Pokémon, PokéStops, and Gyms located in the real world.

Features

 * 1) Gyms &mdash; Locations where teams train and battle Pokémon.
 * 2) Profile Icon &mdash; Shows level progress and medals.
 * 3) Buddy Icon &mdash; Shows current Buddy Pokémon and distance traveled so far.
 * 4) Main Menu &mdash; Accesses to Pokémon and Egg collection, Pokédex, shop, setting, in-game news and tips.
 * 5) Sightings &mdash; Displays wild Pokémon located nearby.
 * 6) Research Tab &mdash; Collecting of field or special researches. Displays orange when research is completed, otherwise transparent.
 * 7) PokéStops &mdash; Locations where Trainers can acquire items or Eggs.
 * 8) Compass &mdash; Toggles the viewing direction in Map View. The player can switch between a north-viewing direction and auto-rotation, which follows your viewing direction. The player can also rotate using touch gestures.
 * 9) Weather &mdash; Shows the current weather.

Nearby tab
The Nearby tab is split into two tabs named Pokémon and Raid with wild Pokémon and the incoming and ongoing Raids nearby player shown respectively.

There are currently two sections of the Pokémon tab &mdash; Nearby and Sightings. The first one is showing Pokemon nearby PokéStops that can be seen in the Map View from the current location of player. The same species of Pokémon are grouped together. For example, instead of showing multiple Rattatas by the same PokéStop, there is only one Rattata icon shown at the specific PokéStop in the tab.

The second section appears if the first one is only one-row high or not present at all (if there is no Pokemon by any PokéStop or no PokéStops around at all), and then there are shown Pokémon with grass icons that are somewhere in player's closest area.

If the Sightings section is also empty, player can open it and tap the "No sightings yet" message to force refresh the list.

The Raid tab is also split into two section &mdash; Local and Remote. The first one appears whenever there is incoming or ongoing Raid Battle at the Gym that can be seen from the current location of player.

Player can tap on the specific icon of the Raid to see where the particular Gym is on the map.

The second section – Remote appears above the first one if Trainer gets invited to any Raid by invitation from the Raid lobby.

Historical Nearby tab
Initially this tab was known just as Nearby (sometimes called Tracker by players) and it shown Pokémon "in grass" that are in player's nearest area.

There used to be footstep measurement which showed a Trainer's proximity to the Pokémon. There were icons from one to three footsteps which were meant to hint how far the wild Pokémon is. This way of hints was ambiguous. The whole footstep tracking feature was failing from the beginning and it was removed in the 0.31 game update.

With the update to version 0.33 the Nearby tab functionality started to change drastically and after November, 2016, the Nearby tab began to show wild Pokémon near PokéStops that are visible in the Map View &mdash; this is current functionality of the Nearby tab.

After release of Trainer Battles features, Trainer Battle invitation QR Code and the training battles with Team Leaders were accessible from Nearby Tab which gained a third tab – Battle tab. It was removed from the Nearby tab after GO Battle League feature release which moved these elements to the Battle page accessible from the game Main Menu.

Trivia

 * Map View is one of most recognisable screens of Pokémon GO, alongside with encounter screen of wild Pokémon.