South Koreans flock to remote northern area to play Pokémon Go

Fans of hit smartphone game trek to 'only Poki(C)mon Go holy land on peninsula' following restrictions on Google Maps, leaving behind jobs and families

South Korean Poki(C)mon Go players have been forced to leave their home towns and flock to a remote city close to the North Korean border in order to play because of the country's mapping restrictions.

As a location-based game augmented reality game, Poki(C)mon Go relies on data from Google Maps to function, but South Korean security restrictions on mapping data have blocked Google from providing map features across a significant proportion of the country, including realtime information, 3D maps, personal transport directions and indoor maps.