I'm curious if it's possible to access the game using VPN while in China? From my hotel room in Macau, I can see a gym across the border. That's the Phoenix Tree Tower in Zhuhai, China.
I'm a daily player going to China next month so any tips will be useful ☺️☺️☺️
by MJAlv
24 Comments
You can play in some parts of China, not others. Zhuhai is one of the places where you can find lots of pogo playing. Where there are colored gyms, you could play. You could also try asking around for local communities and meetups
It didn’t work when I was there. You technically can open the app and do some tasks that are not linking to GPS (hatch eggs, open gifts, claim rewards,…) but you will not see anything on screen except for a blank map.
Sorry, no tips. Just wanted to say “Hi” from your friend’s list. Hope you enjoy your travels!
You can only play where they don’t have the Great Firewall. Hainan is one of the few places you can play but not in mainland China
Due to how geo blocking is done in PoGo you can play in quite large areas of China near the boarders.
You will likley need to use a VPN to unblock the games servers though.
Have a watch of this video by Brandon Tan, he has filmed a few different videos playing in China over the years: https://youtu.be/QHi2RZb4ZyI?
Yeah there’s gyms and stuff in Shenyang aswell
If you catch a pokemon from a research task in the areas where you cant play pokemon go, what will the location card say? Anyone knows?
Scan the local military radar installation for one poffin.
You can log in with a VPN, hatch eggs, do battles and… that’s pretty much it. No spawns, no gyms.
I have been living here about 6 years, and it’s been hell trying to play.
When I was in Pyongyang, nothing at all, no spawns or anything, caught a Pokémon from my tasks and It just says unknown in the location caught
I played in zhuhai last month
As others have said you can play around borders like Zhuhai (next to Macau) and some small parts of Shenzhen (next to HK). Hatching eggs, receiving and sending gifts, battling is fine. Everything else is blocked out because of geo blocking.
Any idea why it can’t be played? It’s not like you are catching Winnie the Pooh.
It worked in Sanya
https://preview.redd.it/xtj02cygxr9g1.jpeg?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=7009afb6777f798986eeea050107b5b278a5adbf
I did a remote raid for Kartana three years ago, and it’s tagged as, ‘Hai Kou Shi, China’.
Zhuhai is a playable area close to the border. I used an international eSIM to access Pokemon Go, (like one you would buy from a company like Airalo). I was there about a month ago, and Campfire is blocked there without using a VPN. So you would need to look into where the gym clusters are that you are planning to play in before hand. I have a Pikachu Libre from last season that I caught in China. It has the location tag “Guangdong, China”.
Since about a year ago you don’t need VPN anymore to open the game. Just a non-Chinese eSIM works fine, as they relaxed the restrictions on the Great Chinese Firewall when using foreign eSIM.
This map shows the parts of China that are geoblocked (in the non-shaded area). Niantic did a sloppy job, so there’s a lot of places in China where the game is playable with a VPN.
https://www.google.com/maps/d/u/0/viewer?mid=1KjoIIZLc42Vhtq750dcJbhPLePlTTmwB&ll=33.07837811470592%2C108.80858280195432&z=5
https://imgur.com/a/8tQXFtD
You can open the game, but there are no gyms, pokestops, or spawns, so it’s pretty pointless.
That is a very cool looking building
Went to China about a month ago, so here are my notes / experiences
NOT playable: Shanghai, Suzhou, Chengdu,
Playable: Shenyang, Harbin, Changbaishan/Erdaobaihe (makes me think the “geoblock” is latitude/longitude based)
VPN status: IF you get a conventional simcard you’ll need a VPN, whereas esims bypass the need for it entirely (using “airport wifi” doesn’t work if you plan to get a conventional simcard)
Things that don’t work (where game is not playable):
– Buddy Snapshot
– Daily Stuff (Incense not work, Egg doesn’t spawn, Pokemon doesn’t spawn)
– Pokestops, Gyms, Dynamax Spots (don’t exist)
– Rocket balloons don’t spawn
– Buddy presents (the “bonus” one)
– Really hard to complete research quests
– Buddy does NOT find gifts (well, how?) so when your gifts are gone, good luck
Things that do work (where game is not playable):
– Battle hearts (leader training only)
– Walking to hatch eggs
– Friend list (takes a while to open)
– Feeding buddy
– Daily field research generates
– Scatterbug can be caught – [“caught” location is UNKNOWN, was in Shanghai](https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/813877666746728450/1441197591785242734/Screenshot_2025-11-21-06-42-09-357_com.nianticlabs.pokemongo-edit.jpg?ex=69510a1a&is=694fb89a&hm=399ed9872f5c6f70a75427fe4c33c55d55066131b6867fc22f6834ea62731ea4&😉
– GoBattleLeague works as intended
– Forced encounters are a thing (well, the GBL and Scatterbug ones at least) – location is “unknown” when caught,
– Event research generates, I can’t do anything with it (can see the “timed research quest spawn” but VERY difficult to progress them without gyms/stops),
– Map loads (and is accurate) but no POIs makes it useless for navigation purposes – [this is “Shanghai Financial District” – Shanghai Tower would be marked with an X if it existed, and would be the perfect example of a useful POI](https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/813877666746728450/1441004565393702964/Screenshot_2025-11-20-17-56-42-642_com.nianticlabs.pokemongo-edit.jpg?ex=6950ff14&is=694fad94&hm=d5f52917eb9af50c58dfa6a027acbb53313f50fd9224f2121ea8af39ec03e6f6&😉
– Mega’ing a Pokemon for the levels
Other notes:
– Be VERY wary about “plonking a mon into a gym” – sure gyms are visible (where the game is playable), [but at 150+ days for pokemon being left there, don’t expect them to come back any time soon](https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/813877666746728450/1444233321193148447/Screenshot_2025-11-29-15-46-48-210_com.nianticlabs.pokemongo-edit.jpg?ex=69518958&is=695037d8&hm=eaa1d304c9fc7b87ae10a8dcbc679985e4a1c941a492aebb93fc61a995067be3&😉
– If you’re “conventional sim” then a VPN makes the game VERY laggy, good luck if you’re trying to raid (I failed a T3 Sawk because it took about a third of the timer to even put me into “mashing simulator”, nearly did it despite that)
– Adventure sync rewards payout when you next get to an area which is playable (so not 9am on Monday if you’re in “geoblock”) – not sure how this would work if you were out-of-area for over a week
My playstyle where game wasn’t “playable”:
Open game, Incubate 7km or longer egg, Feed buddy, Open gifts (pin for potential scatterbug), Close game
I visited China in 2019 and back then, even with a VPN, there was nothing. Interesting to see the other comments here that say the game is playable there now, just in areas where stuff has been added. Back then I think it was totally banned.
You can play in Hainan as well but you have to use vpn
You might want to check out Caleb Peng’s series of videos when he was in China for a bit. If you don’t know him, he’s one of the casters for the big tournaments, so he’s big into PVP. https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLl_A2EvjSMEc1MtnyUlB5PhcGvMLWn70w