Question

What’s the difference between Region and Generation? Or are they the same thing?

Answer 1

The region in a Pokémon game is the area of the Pokémon world that you explore in a specific game. Each region appears to be based on a real life country/area of the world and have similar climates to their real life counterparts. All the games (with the exception of Gold, Silver, Crystal, HeartGold and SoulSilver) have only one region. The games listed above are hosts to Johto, but also its neighbour, Kanto, after defeating the league.

Currently, there are nine regions in the main series games. In the order they were introduced in:

• Kanto R/B/Y/FR/LG/LGP/LGE (based on a south-east region of Honshu, Japan)
• Johto G/S/C/HG/SS (based on a south-east region of Honshu, Japan, immediately west of Kanto)
• Hoenn R/S/E/OR/AS (based on Japan’s most southerly main island, Kyushu)
• Sinnoh D/P/Pt (based on Japan’s most northerly main island, Hokkaido)
• Unova B/W/B2/W2 (based on the USA, or New York City to be more precise)
• Kalos X/Y (based on France)
• Alola S/M/US/UM (based on Hawaii)
• Galar SW/SH (based on the UK)
• Paldea S/V (based on the Iberian Peninsula, comprising of mainland Spain and mainland Portugal)

A generation, however, is when a list of changes and new features are added to the franchise. Every generation has begun with a new game being host to a new region, around 100 new Pokémon, new characters, story and everything else. That generation then continues to include other games such as remakes, enhanced versions or sequels. There are also eight generations, named Generation I, Generation II, etc. Each generation has added a new region. Also, you can only trade between games of the same generation, so Diamond and Platinum are compatible for trading but Diamond and White2 are not since they are from different generations.

So in short, a region is an aspect of a generation, as it is part of what they introduce.

See here for more details on regions: https://m.bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Region

See here for more details on generations: https://m.bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Generation

I hope this cleared things up a bit.

Comments

I love your answer!!! It's really good with lots of detail and examples. HOWEVER, there is more than 8 regions in Pokemon. There's also Almia and Oblivia. To make your answer more accurate, you should specify there's only 8 in the main series games :) here's an upvote

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Good point, thanks!

Answer 2

A Region is a physical area, a geography, in which the adventure takes place. A generation refers to the new Pokemon, Moves, Abilities, and other mechanics that are implemented in the game.

Most games are contained to a single region. For example, Ruby, Sapphire, Emerald, Alpha Sapphire, and Omega Ruby all take place in the Hoenn region, and only the Hoenn region. The same is true for Red, Blue, Yellow, Fire Red, and Leaf Green. They all take place in Kanto region, though Fire Red and Leaf Green also added what could be called a mini-region, the Sevii Islands.

Gold, Silver, Crystal, Heart Gold, and Soul Silver, however, are a little different. They all start in the Johto region, but also include the Kanto region. There is a point in the game where you unlock the ability to travel back and forth between them freely.

Another important thing to consider is that different generations are only ever forward compatible, never backwards. That is to say, through Pokebank and similar out of game systems, you can move Pokemon forward from an older generation to a newer one, but you cannot move them from a newer one back to an older one. Some of this is due to software limitations or hack/glitch abuse prevention, but a fair amount of it is also balance changes. Things like changing a Pokemon's Hidden Ability (like Chandelure from Gen 5 to Gen 6), or alterations to a Pokemon's stats, even removing a selection of moves, both from specific Pokemon or from the game as a whole (Sword/Shield did this pretty extensively).