Map View

The Map View is the main screen of the game, which allows access to most of the game elements and it displays the locations of Pokémon, PokéStops, and Gyms located in the real world.

Features

 * Main Menu button
 * Access to Pokémon and Egg collection, Pokédex, shop, Battle page, game settings, in-game news and tips.


 * Profile Icon
 * Access to Trainer's profile page and Friends list.
 * Shows Trainer's nickname and level progress.


 * Buddy Icon
 * Access to Buddy Adventure page.
 * Shows current Buddy Pokémon and its happiness level.


 * Nearby Tab button
 * Access to Nearby Tab with nearby Pokémon and Raids in Trainer's closest area.
 * Displays three wild Pokémon located nearby, prioritising unregistered Pokémon and Pokémon manually selected to track.
 * The button turns orange when Trainer is invited to a Raid or are able to attempt to catch the Raid Pokemon if they got disconnected.


 * Research Tab button
 * Access to Field Research tasks, Special Research tasks and Today View.
 * The button turns orange when any Research task is completed.


 * Compass
 * Toggles the viewing direction in the Map View. The player can switch between a north-viewing direction and auto-rotation, which follows Trainer's viewing direction using device's gyroscope.
 * Player can also rotate Map View using touch gestures.
 * Paired Pokémon GO Plus icon is displayed below it.
 * All item bonuses such as: Incense, Lucky Egg, Mystery Box, Star Piece along with Rocket Radars are displayed bellow compass icon.


 * Weather Icon
 * Access to Weather Page.
 * Shows the current weather.


 * Avatar
 * Digital representation of Trainer which appears in player's current location.
 * While standing, avatar is rotated using device's gyroscope.


 * Wild Pokémon
 * Digital representation of Pokémon that are possible to catch.
 * Tapping on them accesses Pokémon encounter screen.
 * Weather Boosted Pokémon have special, flowing ring around them.
 * Lured Pokemon have a pink ring around them.
 * Each day when logging in after midnight, a single Pokemon will appear with a white ring around it; it will not despawn for the whole day and remain in that spot regardless of how far Trainer travels.


 * PokéStops
 * PokéStops – locations where Trainers can acquire items and Eggs.
 * Wild Pokémon naturally gather around them.
 * Not visited PokéStops have white, horizontal ring around them.
 * When occupied by Team Rocket, the cube above the stop will turn dark and shake wildly.


 * Gyms
 * Gyms – locations which Teams can occupy by battling and deploying Pokémon.
 * Raid Battles take place at gyms.


 * Team GO Rocket Balloons
 * The Trainer can tap on the balloon to encounter the Team GO Rocket member riding in it.


 * Campfire icon
 * Opens the Campfire view.


 * Daily Incense Indicator
 * Indicates that the Daily Incense is available to be used.


 * Temporary item bonuses
 * It indicates items in effect and the time remaining of their corresponding bonuses, such as Incenses, Lucky Egg, Star Piece, and Mega Evolution.


 * Rocket Radar Indicator
 * It indicates that Rocket Radar is equipped.

Nearby Tab
The Nearby Tab is accessible from the bottom right corner of the Map View screen, when being tapped it displays over the Map View. It is split into two tabs labelled Pokémon and Raid with wild Pokémon and the incoming and ongoing Raids nearby player shown respectively.

Pokémon that are not currently registered into Pokédex are displayed as dark silhouettes for both wild Pokémon and Raid Battles. Pokémon that are not registered display first in both opened Nearby Tab and Nearby Tab button in the Map View.

Pokémon
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. When specific icon of Pokémon nearby the PokéStop is tapped it begins to be selected:
 * Selected PokéStop gets quickly displayed from a bird's-eye view on the map.
 * Selected PokéStop gets a pink mark above it in the Map View, which allows Trainer to easier navigation to it.
 * Selected Pokémon's icon is marked and appears at the beginning of the Nearby Tab button in the Map View.

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

When specific icon of Pokémon in grass is tapped the pop message will appear saying "Find this Pokémon in the wild!".

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

Raids
The Raids tab is also split into two sections &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. Once player receives an remote invitation to Raid Battle, whole Nearby Tab bar in the Map View turns orange for the time of the invitation being active.

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.

This historical Nearby Tab had following features, that are absent or replaced in the current Nearby Tab feature:
 * Footprints (an indicator of the potential distance between the Trainer and the Pokémon)
 * Blue Ring (indicated the Pokémon that was currently focused on tracking)

Tapping on a specific Pokemon in the tab would make it the focus of interest, and change the Nearby Tab to show just that Pokémon and its footprints indicator. Opening the Nearby Tab again would show that selected Pokémon with a blue ring among all others in range.

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.

Battles
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.