Trainers, hold on to your chairs, this is big news! The underlying OpenStreetMap data used for creating in-game spawns and nests has been updated on Niantic’s server side, enabling a large scale addition of nests at local parks around the world.
Be aware that this data update is not reflected visually in the in-game overworld map: everything will look the same, but some of the parks that weren’t nests before, will now have proper Pokémon nests.
Although not all of the changes are not visible on the overworld map, players have observed new nests in the following areas of the world:
- most of North America,
- Australia,
- Europe,
- general Indochina region
OSM Planet dumps and Pokémon GO Nests
The last time nest data was updated was more than a year ago, which begs the following question: what is the date of the OSM data set Niantic used for this update? According to a reddit user called mybham, the date falls anywhere from 30 March 2018 to 2 April 2018, which doesn’t really fall in line with OSM’s weekly release schedule for planet dumps.
The latest planet dump (a file containing all OSM data) was publicly released six days ago (19 April 2018), which means that the dates of four planet dumps preceding this one are as follows:
- 12 April 2018
- 05 April 2018
- 29 March 2018
- 22 March 2018
We believe that Niantic has used the 29th of March (or earlier) planet dump to create new nests and update the in-game nesting strategy. You can read more about Planet Dumps here.
The following OSM tags have been linked with Pokémon Nests in Pokémon GO:
- [leisure=park]
- [landuse=recreation_ground]
- [leisure=recreation_ground]
- [leisure=pitch]
- [leisure=garden]
- [leisure=golf_course]
- [leisure=playground]
- [landuse=meadow]
- [landuse=grass]
- [landuse=greenfield]
- [natural=scrub]
- [natural=heath]
- [natural=grassland]
- [landuse=farmyard]
- [landuse=vineyard]
- [landuse=farmland]
- [landuse=orchard]
