Anyone ever hear the theory that the regions are being chosen if they're popular travel destinations for the Japanese? Given New York, France, and Hawaii have been what we've seen so far...
This
article provides the following: China, South Korea, Taiwan, Macau, Hong Kong. Thailand, Vietnam, Hawaii, Guam, France, Spain, Germany, Switzerland, Philippines, Australia, Malaysia, and Canada.
This one provides some
statistics for a number of the above in recent years and including: Singapore, Indonesia, New Zealand, and Austria.
Another idea I have is regions could be based on
countries with large number of Japanese immigrants: Brazil, United States (aside from Hawaii there is also Washington, Oregon, and California), Philippines, United Kingdom, Peru, and Canada.
The wiki
page on the subject adds more including Mexico, Argentina, Chile, and India.
While NY is not directly mentioned (unless I missed it) I note the Unova Starters were designed with Japanese (Samurai), France (Nobility), and Chinese (Soldier) elements in their design to highlight cultural diversity of the real world location Unova was based on.
Lastly, the Hokulani Observatory in Alola is based on the
Mauna Kea Observatories with their telescopes owned by various countries: Canada, France, USA (Hawaii, Arizona (
Orre), California), UK, Chile, Australia, Argentina, Brazil, China, Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan. All countries I've listed before.
So I am expecting all future regions to be one of those. I guess the next step here is to sort them by:
Urban/Modern
Culture/Traditional
Tropical
Cold