Regions

Regions are an organized areas of the Pokémon world known from previous games about Pokémon such as games from core series. In Pokémon GO there are currently only three regions referred, which are Kanto, Johto and Hoenn.

Kanto
The Pokémon known from Kanto region were the base Pokémon released in Pokémon GO. But not all Pokémon of this Generation were released at this time.

There are currently two Pokémon, that are still not available and not officially scheduled to be released:
 * Mewtwo (currently available only from EX Raid Battles that are in tests)
 * Mew

History

 * November 22, 2016 – Ditto was released in the games, disguised as other Pokémon.
 * July 22, 2017 to July 30, 2017 – Articuno were available from Raid Battles.
 * July 31, 2017 to August 6, 2017 – Moltres were available from Raid Battles.
 * August 7, 2017 to August 12, 2017 – Zapdos were available from Raid Battles.
 * From August 12, 2017 to August 31, 2017 - All three Legendary Birds were available from Raid Battles.

Johto
Johto is so far second region from which Pokémon are available in Pokémon GO. The Pokémon from this region were firstly released in December, 2016 as Baby Pokémon available to hatch from Pokémon Eggs.

There are currently several Pokémon, that are still not available nor officially scheduled to be released:
 * Smeargle
 * Delibird
 * Ho-Oh
 * Celebi

History

 * December 12, 2016 - Togepi and Pichu along with another Baby Pokémon and Togetic as evolution of Togepi were released as Pokémon available only to hatch from Pokémon Eggs.
 * February 15, 2017 - over 80 Pokémon from this region were available to catch in the wild and hatch from eggs.
 * July 22, 2017 - Lugia was released as the Legendary Raid Boss and is available to catch only after defeating it.
 * From August 31, 2017 to September 30, 2017 - Legendary Beasts were available as the Legendary Raid Bosses and were available to catch only after defeating them. All three of these Pokémon were exclusive to following regions:
 * Raikou could be battled throughout the Americas
 * Entei could be battled throughout Europe and Africa
 * Suicune could be battled throughout the Asia-Pacific region
 * On September 30, all three of Legendary Beasts moved to different locations and are available until October 31 in following regions:
 * Raikou can be battled throughout the Asia-Pacific region
 * Entei can be battled throughout the Americas
 * Suicune can be battled throughout Europe and Africa
 * On October 31, all three of Legendary Beasts will move to yet another locations and will be available until November 31 in following regions:
 * Raikou - Europe and Africa the
 * Entei - Asia-Pacific region
 * Suicune - the Americas.

Hoenn
Hoenn is third region from original core series of which Pokémon are now available in Pokémon GO. Selected Pokémon from this region were firstly released in October, 2017 as a part of Halloween event. Another Pokémon of this region are yet to be released, but they're currently in game code.

History

 * October 20, 2017 - 5 Pokémon of ghost and dark types were released as a part of Halloween event. Those were Sableye, Shuppet, Banette, Duskull and Dusclops.

Trivia

 * Another term used in Pokémon GO players community to describe Pokémon groups from each region is Generations. Which also is valid but it wasn't officially referred in game nor by its creators on official social-media and information channels.
 * Therefore Kanto is Generation I, Johto is Generation II, Hoenn is Generation III and so on.
 * More about generations you can find here.
 * Common thing for Pokémon, that are not available with main release of each region Pokémon, is that those Pokémon either are legendary and/or mythical or have certain, special moves like Ditto or Delibird.
 * There are at most sixteen known regions that have appeared in the various Pokémon canons.
 * There has been Pokémon species from Hoenn added to game code since update 0.71.0.
 * It is thought by Ranked Boosted that Gen 3 will be released around 1/15/2017