A dataset spanning 110 hours, generated from a variety of Pokémon monitoring stations, was provided for analysis. Pokémon appear to spawn at fixed locations in the world, once an hour, and run away after 15 minutes. Pokémon ‘density’ is directly correlated to the number of spawn locations within view: In locations with spawning Pokémon, 40% will have on average one Pokémon visible at a time. Human population is strongly correlated with Pokémon spawn rates, culminating in regions with the lowest human population having Pokémon spawn rates of 0%.

⊕ Note : This research is meant to provide insights into the lives and habitats of Pokémon, and is not intended to convey inappropriate advantages to Pokémon poachers. As such, specific details of the location of the monitoring stations will be kept private, and the researchers involved in this project are refraining from jumping in the car and heading to the nearest nest [if one were to exist]. A total of 160 stations were placed within the world, each separated by .002 latitude / longitude. We were assured that the sampling was done in an intermittent fashion to avoid disturbing the population. The coverage was selected to identify metropolitan, urban, rural, and lake habitats. Of those 160 stations, only 96 stations actually observed one or more Pokémon. Intermittent sampling provided observations on 41,657 distinct Pokémon over the course of 110 hours.

We will discuss our findings, starting with individual spawn locations and moving into more general summaries.

Distribution of Pokémon Locations / Distance from Observer Below is a distribution plot of the Pokémon observed, combining all observation stations. As you can see, wild Pokémon are not observable outside a distance of 100m from the observation point (denoted by the red circle). ⊕ Instead of Observation Posts, you can think of yourself standing in a field. How far can you see pokemon? How many will spawn around you during the course of an hour? That is what we’re talking about. Of particular note is the sparsity of locations, the small number of black dots. Each of the 422 points represents 99 individual Pokémon spawns occurring in exactly the same location. If Pokémon spawning was random, this should be an evenly-distributed cloud of points. As this is not the case, it’s clear that Pokémon spawn in fixed locations. Finally, the individual spawn locations themselves are relatively evenly distributed, with a slight increase in density at the diagonal directions. This merits further investigation with additional observation locations. Spawn Location Distance from Observation Station

Variety of Pokémon Spawns within Station View Given that Pokémon spawn in a fixed location, the next question becomes: How many spawn locations are observed by a typical monitoring station? Grouping each monitoring station based on the number of spawn locations contained within the monitoring station reveals that most stations have access to five or fewer Pokémon spawn locations, with very few having access to more than 10: Distribution of Visible Spawn Counts

Time To Spawn It’s become common knowledge that the act of a Pokémon spawning at a specific spawn location occurs on an hourly basis, and this dataset seems to confirm this observation 1 1 This is not charted, as it’s a rather boring chart. Every single one of the 41,657 Pokémon was observed for no more than 15 minutes. The ones that were observed less than 15 minutes were during the start or end of the observation period., 2 2 Interesting! I’ve been shared data that seems to indicate there are 30-minute spawns. I’ve double-checked my data, and the only time this happens is when the servers seem to have a hiccup. That said, I may have more information in the next week, so stay tuned!. Hourly spawning of Pokémon is only part of the story, as an observer in any given location may have access to additional spawn locations. Turning our gaze to these observation stations, one could think of it as standing in a singular place: What is the average time you would have to wait until another Pokémon arrived (of any type), given the time of the last Pokémon spawn? This is strongly correlated to the number of spawn locations an observation station has access to. In referring to the cumulative frequency chart below, you can determine that in this dataset it would be 50% probable to see a new Pokémon within 18 minutes while standing stationary. Observation Stations: Mean Minutes Until Spawn Each bar in this chart represents the number of stations that have an average time-until-next-spawn of N minutes. Given that Pokémon spawn every 60 minutes and persist for 15 minutes, observation stations with 4 or more spawn points become increasingly likely to have concurrent Pokémon. The sampled probability of coming across multiple Pokémon was found to be: Pokemon Seen Concurrently Probability 1 74.659% 2 18.743% 3 04.354% 4 01.371% 5 00.541% 6 00.182% 7 00.065% 8 00.055% 9 00.020% 10 00.003% 11 00.007% If one were waiting for a specific Pokémon to respawn, that is another story. Each spawn location may spawn a variety of Pokémon, and so anything but the most common Pokémon will take several hours to spawn at the same location. Please refer to Pokémon Spawn Frequencies per Station for a list of Pokémon type / Pokémon respawn probabilities.