Special (location)
?????????? | ????? | ! | Abnormal Pokémon | Bad Egg | Enigma Berry (Generation III) | Error! | Error codes (Generations I and II) | Error traps for damaged save data | Error traps to prevent impossible progress | Event data debugging messages | Instant victory effect (Generation II) | Mystery Zone | N/A | Pokégear instruction booklet trap | Rhydon trap | Special (location) | This Game Pak is designed only for use on the Game Boy Color. | This Pokémon cannot be traded.
This article is about the placeholder term for a map which is displayed on the Town Map as "SPECIAL", for other uses for non-glitch and non-beta elements such as the Special stat please see Bulbapedia's disambiguation page.
The term 'SPECIAL' is the name for locations with an identifier of 0 on the Pokégear's Town Map section in Pokémon Gold, Pokémon Silver and Pokémon Crystal. It is presumably a placeholder and not a pure coincidence as supported by the fact that the same locations are later referred to as "Special Area" on Pokémon Ruby, Pokémon Sapphire and Pokémon Emerald and much later as one of many variants of the Mystery Zones on Pokémon Diamond and Pearl.
The term is also likely to have been left behind from Pokémon Red, Pokémon Blue and Pokémon Yellow as Pokémon Gold and Silver originally used the same engine, as was the case with the message "You missed the Pokémon".