>>48043126California native here: Large as Cali is, the vast majority of it is pretty much just farmland with scattered small towns, especially the Central Valley(everything between around Santa Barbara and San Jose that isn't the coast) and could honestly be covered by a single route or even a train ride to skip it all.
At the same time, everything north of Sacramento is also just...small rural towns that could be represented pretty accurately by a starter town and a tutorial town.
My idea for the region would have you starting in the northern end, at South Lake Tahoe, and then moving south and west. You go to Placerville, then Sacramento, then hit the Bay Area which would have at least two gyms. Then you basically follow highway 1 down the coast, hitting Monterey and San Luis Obispo before landing in the LA area, which has the seventh gym and all the usual big city amenities. Final gym is in San Diego, which also has the Safari Zone to represent the San Diego Zoo's Safari Park. Victory Road and the Pokemon League could be either Yosemite like
>>48042952 said or Vegas like
>>48042439 said, but either way the Postgame would take up a lot of the east half of the map. Maybe after you've gotten the badges but before you take on the league you head up to the northern end of the region and do story-mandated legendary shenanigans.
Also, if there's gonna be a wild west area it should be Placerville, not Yosemite.
