A hometown is a town that a person considers their home. In the core series video games, it is the town that the player's journey begins in.

Ash Ketchum started his journey in Pallet Town.

In the games

In the core series games, the player and their rival will begin their journey in their hometown, venturing onto the first routes from there, encountering the Pokémon Professor, and getting their starter Pokémon. After defeating the Elite Four and Champion, the player will start again from their hometown when the game is next loaded.

The hometown varies with the region the player starts in:

Gallery

Regional hometowns
Kanto        
Generation I Generation II Generation III Generation IV
Johto    
Generation II Generation IV
Hoenn      
Ruby and Sapphire Emerald Omega Ruby and
Alpha Sapphire
Sinnoh    
Diamond and Pearl Platinum
Unova    
Nuvema Town,
Black and White
Aspertia City,
Black 2 and White 2
Kalos  
X and Y

In the anime

 
Iris's hometown in the anime

Hometowns in the anime are more diverse than in the video games. Main characters (and their rivals) are not always limited to the six towns specified in the video games. Like many of the other settlements in the anime, the hometowns are significantly larger than their game counterparts.

Kanto

Johto

Hoenn

Sinnoh

Unova

Kalos

In the manga

The various series of Pokémon manga follow the games in having their main characters start in Pallet Town, New Bark Town, Littleroot Town, Twinleaf Town and Nuvema Town. There are some characters, though, that have unique hometowns such as Yellow from Pokémon Adventures who was born in Viridian Forest.

  This article is part of Project Cities and Towns, a Bulbapedia project that aims to write comprehensive articles on every city and town in the Pokémon world.