Pokemon Type Distributions

05-23-2022


A visualization for Pokemon type distribution

The Wordle craze brought about many Wordle variants, and one that I particularly enjoy is Squirdle, in which you are given a limited number of attempts to guess a specific Pokemon. Having a strong familiarity with how the Pokemon types are distributed throughout the generations is extremely useful in playing Squirdle, so I created a visualization to help identify trends worth noting here: michaelcw.com/pokemon_types/. This currently covers all Pokemon from generations 1 to 8. Generation 9 is on the horizon, but we only know a few of the Pokemon at the time of writing.

(One could also use this as an aid while playing, but I prefer to play without any outside help.)

Those familiar with Pokemon, particularly the more recent generations, will know that there are many cases where a Pokemon has alternate forms. I therefore needed to make some decisions about whether an alternate form counts as a separate entry. For this project:

  • Mega evolutions are considered separate entries.
  • Alolan, Galarian, and Hisuian forms are considered separate entries.
  • Some other form variants are also considered separate. If a variant results in a different type, it will definitely be counted separately.
    • For example, Rotom forms, Shaymin Sky Forme, Oricorio styles, etc., are considered different entries.
    • On the other hand, the different Deoxys forms, or the different Basculin colors are not considered different entries.

Observations

Playing around with the tool, we can make some fun observations:

  • Secondary Flying is unique in that it forms a combination with every other type. This has been true since Gen 6, thanks to Hawlucha. Primary Water and Primary Rock come close, but are missing two each: Water/Normal, Water/Fire, Rock/Normal, and Rock/Ghost don't exist yet.
  • Dragon forms a type combination with every other type except for Bug. This has been true since Gen 7, thanks to Drampa and the Kommo-o line.
  • Recently, Pokemon with Flying as a primary type have been showing up. It started with Noibat and Noivern (Dragon/Flying) in Gen 6, but Gen 8 added Cramorant (Flying/Water) and Corviknight (Flying/Steel).
  • Flying remains the rarest single-type by a large margin. Tornadus used to hold the title of the only pure Flying type, but Gen 8 added Rookidee and Corvisquire.
    • Steel is the next rarest single-type with 11 (including Galarian Meowth and Mega Aggron).
  • In Gen 1 alone, six types have no single-type Pokemon: Ice, Flying, Rock, Ghost, Dark, Steel.
    • Rock, Ghost, Dark were added in Gen 2 (Sudowoodo, Misdreavus, Umbreon).
    • Ice and Steel were added in Gen 3 (Snorunt/Glalie/Regice, Registeel).
    • Flying was added in Gen 5 (Tornadus).
  • Ignoring primary vs. secondary, there are 16 type combinations that do not have any Pokemon:
    • Normal/Ice
    • Normal/Poison
    • Normal/Bug
    • Normal/Rock
    • Normal/Steel
    • Fire/Grass
    • Fire/Fairy
    • Electric/Fighting
    • Ice/Poison
    • Fighting/Ground
    • Fighting/Fairy
    • Poison/Steel
    • Ground/Fairy
    • Bug/Dragon
    • Bug/Dark
    • Rock/Ghost
  • Ignoring primary vs. secondary, there are 24 type combinations that only have one Pokemon:
    • Normal/Water - Bibarel
    • Normal/Dragon - Drampa
    • Fire/Water - Volcanion
    • Fire/Electric - Rotom (Heat)
    • Fire/Ice - Galarian Darmanitan (Zen)
    • Fire/Steel - Heatran
    • Water/Steel - Empoleon
    • Grass/Ground - Torterra
    • Electric/Ground - Stunfisk
    • Electric/Psychic - Alolan Raichu
    • Electric/Ghost - Rotom
    • Electric/Dark - Morpeko
    • Ice/Dragon - Kyurem (and Black Kyurem/White Kyurem)
    • Ice/Fighting - Crabominable
    • Ice/Ghost - Froslass
    • Ice/Fairy - Alolan Ninetales
    • Fighting/Rock - Terrakion
    • Fighting/Ghost - Marshadow
    • Poison/Rock - Nihilego
    • Poison/Fairy - Galarian Weezing
    • Bug/Ghost - Shedinja
    • Rock/Dark - Tyranitar (and Mega Tyranitar)
    • Ghost/Fairy - Mimikyu
    • Dragon/Fairy - Mega Altaria
  • In addition, 27 more type combinations only have one evolution line:
    • Normal/Fire - Litleo, Pyroar
    • Normal/Grass - Deerling, Sawsbuck
    • Normal/Electric - Helioptile, Heliolisk
    • Normal/Ghost - Hisuian Zoroa, Hisuian Zoroark
    • Fire/Poison - Salandit, Salazzle
    • Water/Grass - Lotad, Lombre, Ludicolo
    • Grass/Ice - Snover, Abomasnow
    • Grass/Rock - Lileep, Cradily
    • Electric/Poison - Toxel, Toxtricity
    • Electric/Rock - Alolan Geodude, Alolan Graveler, Alolan Golem
    • Ice/Steel - Alolan Sandshrew, Alolan Sandslash
    • Ice/Dark - Sneasel, Weavile
    • Ice/Bug - Snom, Frosmoth
    • Ice/Ground - Swinub, Pilowsine, Mamoswine
    • Fighting/Dragon - Hakamo-o, Kommo-o
    • Poison/Ghost - Gastly, Haunter, Gengar
    • Poison/Psychic - Galarian Slowbro, Galarian Slowking
    • Poison/Flying - Zubat, Golbat, Crobat
    • Poison/Ground - Nidoqueen, Nidoking
    • Ground/Psychic - Baltoy, Claydol
    • Ground/Dark - Sandile, Krokorok, Krookodile
    • Psychic/Bug - Dottler, Orbeetle
    • Bug/Fairy - Cutiefly, Ribombee
    • Rock/Dragon - Tyrunt, Tyrantrum
    • Ghost/Steel - Honedge, Doublade, Aegislash
    • Dark/Fairy - Impidimp, Morgrem, Grimmsnarl
    • Dark/Steel - Pawniard, Bisharp

Development

For those curious about how this was created, I first wrote a one-off Python script with the help of the Beautiful Soup web scraping library. This script scrapes the table from https://pokemondb.net/pokedex/all and molds it into a data format that can be consumed by Javascript.

The actual HTML page at michaelcw.com/pokemon_types/ simply expresses the table (without any contents) as well as the control elements, and leaves it to a couple of Javascript files to dynamically load the data and populate the table. You can peek at the Javascript here (although be warned that my Javascript is very... amateur).