Kanto is the fictional region where the first-generation Pokémon games take place.
Pokémon Red, Green, Blue, and Yellow let players travel across Kanto while collecting Pokémon, challenging Gym Leaders, and pursuing the Pokémon League championship. The region contains eight Gyms, the Elite Four, and Professor Oak’s laboratory in Pallet Town.
Kanto’s design is closely related to the real Kantō region of Japan, which includes Tokyo and surrounding prefectures. Towns and routes in the game are fictional, but the region’s broad geography and naming conventions reflect that Japanese setting. The original games’ international versions retain the name Kanto.
Kanto is sometimes confused with Johto because the two regions are connected in Pokémon Gold, Silver, and Crystal. Players can revisit Kanto after completing much of the Johto adventure, but Johto is the primary region of the second generation. Hoenn and Sinnoh belong to later generations. This makes Kanto the precise answer for the setting of the games that launched Pokémon in 1996.