The Johto region: the two towers of Ecruteak City, sixteen Badges and the legendary beasts

A fire more than a century ago, two towers facing each other, and three beasts back from the dead. Johto is the most mythological region of the first half of the series, and the only one whose adventure doesn't stop at its own border: it carries on into Kanto and brings the total to sixteen Badges, a record never matched since.

Contents

• A coastline, mountains and an island to the west
• Cities named after plants
• Johto's eight Gyms
• A League without a home of its own
• A Team Rocket without its boss
• The two towers, the three beasts and the rainbow bird
• A hundred new species and the first Eggs
• Johto in the anime
• Where to explore Johto today
• The Johto region at a glance
• Frequently Asked Questions

A coastline, mountains and an island to the west

Johto is a seaside region, closed in by mountain ranges that separate it from its neighbors. It borders Kanto to the east, making the pair the only directly connected regions in the entire series, and it lies northeast of Hoenn.

Its geography comes down to two movements. You travel west to east as far as Goldenrod City, then turn north and east to reach the last Gyms. To the west, an island cut off from the mainland is home to Cianwood City and its Safari Zone.

The terrain holds three standout places. The Ruins of Alph are an archaeological site where four puzzles you have to piece together unlock access to the Unown, whose shapes form an alphabet. Ilex Forest, for its part, holds a shrine dedicated to Celebi, deep in a forest you cross by following a guide.

🧩 At the Ruins of Alph, you have to piece together four puzzles before you can reach the Unown; on your coffee table, our Pokémon puzzles call for the same patience.

The third is an accident. The Lake of Rage, north of Mahogany Town, was the scene of forced evolutions of Magikarp triggered by Team Rocket — hence the appearance, in the middle of the lake, of a Gyarados in red Shiny coloring. It's the first alternate-color Pokémon the series puts in the player's path, with no luck or hunting involved.

Cities named after plants

Kanto ran through the colors; Johto runs through the plant world. New Bark Town, Cherrygrove City, Violet City, Azalea Town, Ecruteak City, Olivine City, Cianwood City, Mahogany Town, Blackthorn City: almost every name points to a plant, a tree or a flower. Goldenrod City is the exception, drawing its name from gold instead.

New Bark Town is the starting point, and the laboratory of Professor Elm is located here — a researcher who specializes in Pokémon breeding and will go on to introduce Eggs. Unusually, he isn't the one who gives the player the game's introduction: Professor Oak does, from Kanto.

Goldenrod City is the region's only true metropolis, with its Department Store, its Radio Tower and its Magnet Train station. On its own, it offers more services than the rest of Johto combined, and it's also where Team Rocket will strike its most spectacular blow.

The other cities are each known for a single building. Olivine City and its port with a lighthouse, where a sick Ampharos keeps the local Gym Leader at its bedside; Violet City and its Sprout Tower; Cianwood City and its pharmacy; Ecruteak City and its two legendary towers; Blackthorn City, backed up against the Dragon's Den.

Johto's eight Gyms

Johto's Gym circuit is the only one in the series that isn't enough on its own. Its eight Badges open the way to the League, but the adventure then continues in Kanto for eight more Badges — sixteen in all. How each regional circuit works is explained in detail in our guide to the Gym Leaders and Elite Four.

Falkner opens the circuit in Violet City with the Flying type, Bugsy holds Azalea Town with Bug types, and Whitney rules Goldenrod City with the Normal type. Next comes Morty, Ecruteak City's Ghost-type Gym Leader, who spends most of his time hoping to catch sight of Ho-Oh at the top of the Bell Tower.

Two Gym Leaders stand out for their personality. Jasmine, in Olivine City, is the series' first Steel-type specialist — a type introduced in this generation — and she abandons her Gym to nurse a sick Pokémon at the lighthouse. Chuck, in Cianwood City, trains by smashing boulders with his Fighting-type Pokémon.

Pryce brings up the rear in Mahogany Town with the Ice type, and Clair holds Blackthorn City with the Dragon type. Clair is the cousin of Lance, the League Champion, which gives Johto a one-of-a-kind quirk: two of its Gym Leaders share their type with a member of the Elite Four and with the Champion — Chuck with Bruno for Fighting, Clair with Lance for Dragon.

🧵 Eight Badges in Johto, then eight more in Kanto: from Falkner to Clair, sixteen emblems to earn — on your jacket, that job falls to our Pokémon patches and crests.

A League without a home of its own

It's the region's most talked-about oddity. Johto is the only main-series region with no venue of its own for facing the Champion: its League is held at the Indigo Plateau, which is in Kanto. So you have to leave the region to conquer it.

The Elite Four is made up of Will, Koga, Bruno and Karen, and the Champion is Lance, a dragon master. Koga, formerly Fuchsia City's Gym Leader in Kanto, was promoted and handed his Gym over to his daughter Janine: it's one of the rare career moves the series explicitly puts on screen.

Beating the League isn't the end. Mt. Silver, on the border between the two regions, only opens to Trainers who have collected all sixteen Badges — and waiting at its summit is Red, the hero of the previous generation, who never says a word. It's the toughest battle of the second generation, and one of the most famous in the franchise.

A Team Rocket without its boss

The Team Rocket of Johto isn't the same as Kanto's. Three years after it was disbanded, the organization lives on without Giovanni, poorly led and divided — which makes it less threatening but far more unpredictable.

Its three operations tell the story of this decline. At the Slowpoke Well, it cuts off Slowpoke tails to sell them; in Mahogany Town, it sets up transmitters that force the Pokémon of the Lake of Rage to evolve; then it takes over the Radio Tower in Goldenrod City to broadcast a call to its missing boss.

It's this last move that defines it: taking a radio station hostage, not to demand a ransom from anyone, but in the hope that Giovanni will hear the message and come back. The sequence is one of the most memorable in the series, and foiling it puts an end to the organization's activities in the games for good.

The two towers, the three beasts and the rainbow bird

All of Johto's mythology rests on two towers facing each other in Ecruteak City. The Burned Tower, to the west, is said to be where Legendary Pokémon rest; the Bell Tower, to the east, where they awaken. Local legend holds that the two are inseparable.

The founding tragedy goes back more than a century. Struck by lightning, the Burned Tower went up in flames, and the fire drove away Ho-Oh and Lugia: the first had been perched atop the Bell Tower, the second atop the stricken tower itself, and it's in the depths of the Whirl Islands that Lugia is found today. Three Pokémon that died in the fire were brought back to life by Ho-Oh — these are the legendary beasts, which the player finds asleep in the basement of the Burned Tower. Our feature on regional legends explores this founding myth in detail.

Raikou, Entei and Suicune are the series' first roaming legendaries: in Gold and Silver, once awakened, they wander the region and flee on the first turn of battle, which gave rise to an entire hunting genre. A Trainer named Eusine even devotes his life to chasing Suicune.

Then there's the Mythical Pokémon. Celebi travels through time and its shrine stands in Ilex Forest; it can only be obtained through event distributions. With the two birds and the three beasts, Johto has five legendaries, a count detailed in our guide to Legendary and Mythical Pokémon.

A hundred new species and the first Eggs

Johto adds 100 new species, bringing the total to 251. Its regional Pokédex mixes old and new creatures, which becomes the norm for the rest of the series.

The three starters are Chikorita, Cyndaquil and Totodile. It's the first trio in which no member gains a second type on reaching its final evolution — something only Galar would repeat. The details of each regional trio are in our feature on the starters.

Above all, the region introduces two mechanics that will never leave the series. Eggs and breeding at the Day Care, driven by Professor Elm's research, and Shiny Pokémon, with the red Gyarados of the Lake of Rage as their ambassador. Berries and the day/night cycle also appear here.

🌙 It's Johto that brought the day/night cycle into the series; our Pokémon pajamas are the outfit for play sessions that stretch late into the night.

Johto in the anime

Johto takes up three full seasons of the anime: The Johto Journeys, Johto League Champions and Master Quest, which ends with the Silver Conference and the original trio going their separate ways.

Ash spends three full seasons there, a stay that only the one in Sinnoh would outlast. The region returns later, during the Journeys series, which is covered in our guide to all the seasons.

The anime added its own geography there. Greenfield, Palmpona, Len Town and Wobbuffet Village don't exist in any game, and neither does Way Away Island. Three feature films are also tied to this period, including the one devoted to the Unown and the little girl from Greenfield.

Where to explore Johto today

Johto has only had two runs on handheld consoles, which makes it rarer than Kanto: Gold, Silver and Crystal on Game Boy Color, then HeartGold and SoulSilver on Nintendo DS. It also appears in Pokémon Stadium 2.

Each version has its own guide: Pokémon Gold and Silver and their third version Pokémon Crystal on one side, HeartGold and SoulSilver on the other. The full chronology of the saga is laid out in our guide to all the games.

Johto's real selling point remains its second half: once the League is beaten, the map opens up onto all of Kanto, with eight more Gyms and Mt. Silver. No other game in the series has ever offered two complete regions on the same cartridge.

The Johto region at a glance

Frequently Asked Questions

• Why are there sixteen Badges in Johto?
  Because the adventure doesn't stop at the League. After winning Johto's eight Badges and beating the Elite Four, the player can cross over to Kanto and take on that region's eight Gym Leaders, for sixteen Badges in total. No other game in the series has repeated this.
• Where is the Johto League?
  At the Indigo Plateau, which is in Kanto. Johto is the only main-series region with no building of its own for facing the Champion: it shares its League site with its neighbor.
• What is the legend of Ecruteak City's two towers?
  The Burned Tower is said to be where Legendary Pokémon rest, and the Bell Tower where they awaken. More than a century ago, the Burned Tower was struck by lightning and went up in flames, and the fire drove away Ho-Oh and Lugia. Three Pokémon that died in the flames were brought back to life by Ho-Oh: they are Raikou, Entei and Suicune.
• Where do you find the red Gyarados?
  In the middle of the Lake of Rage, north of Mahogany Town. It isn't a random encounter: Team Rocket set up transmitters that force the lake's Magikarp to evolve, and the Shiny Gyarados is the result. It's the first alternate-color Pokémon the series puts in the player's path.
• Why do Johto's legendary beasts flee on the first turn?
  Raikou, Entei and Suicune are the series' first roaming legendaries: in Gold and Silver, once awakened at the Burned Tower, they wander the region and leave battle on the very first turn. Catching them means running into them again at random and blocking their escape.
• What are the Ruins of Alph?
  An archaeological site in Johto where four puzzles you piece together give access to the Unown, whose shapes mirror the letters of an alphabet. The walls bear inscriptions the player can decipher once the puzzles are solved.
• How many new species did Johto bring?
  A hundred, taking the National Pokédex from 151 to 251. The region also introduces Eggs and breeding at the Day Care, Shiny Pokémon, Berries, the Steel and Dark types, and the day/night cycle.

In short

Johto is the region where the series realized it could tell a story that went beyond collecting. Two towers, a century-old fire, three resurrected beasts and a rainbow bird: it's the first Pokémon world to give itself a complete mythology, and the model every later region would follow.

It's also the most generous in content, with its sixteen Badges, its extension into Kanto in its entirety and a silent Red at the top of Mt. Silver. To see where it stands among the others, our overview of the regions of the Pokémon world; to explore it, our guide to all the games.