Vice City is back, but it’s not alone this time. Grand Theft Auto VI drops players into the state of Leonida, a fictionalized, thoroughly modern take on Florida that surrounds its neon-soaked namesake city with swampland, coastline, small towns, and everything in between. Rockstar has revealed a meaningful amount of the map through two trailers and multiple official screenshot drops, and while we don’t have hard numbers on total square kilometers yet, we do know how the world is organized and what kind of variety to expect. Here’s what’s actually been confirmed.
Welcome to Leonida: A Florida Built From Scratch
Leonida is GTA 6’s version of the Sunshine State, and Rockstar has been explicit that it’s a modern setting — smartphones, social media, contemporary culture — rather than a period piece. That’s a notable departure from the neon-drenched 1980s of the original Vice City in GTA: Vice City (2002), and it changes the texture of everything from the vehicles to the way the world reacts to the player.
Unlike GTA V, where the map leaned heavily on the city of Los Santos with the countryside functioning as a secondary space, Leonida is built around several distinct, substantial regions rather than one dominant urban core. That structural choice alone suggests Rockstar wants players spending real time outside the city limits, not just passing through on the way to the next mission marker.
It’s also a return to Rockstar’s roots in a literal sense. Vice City first appeared in 2002’s Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, and the studio has revisited Liberty City and San Andreas multiple times since, but this is the first time Vice City itself has been rebuilt for a mainline numbered entry since that original game. For longtime fans, that alone made Leonida’s reveal one of the most anticipated setting announcements in the series’ history.
Vice City: The Beating Heart of the Map
Vice City itself — Rockstar’s answer to Miami — remains the centerpiece and, by the studio’s own framing, the most detailed city it has ever built. Trailer footage and screenshots have shown dense downtown skylines, waterfront neighborhoods, strip malls, and the kind of hyper-specific texture (chain restaurants, tattoo parlors, salons, strip clubs) that Rockstar uses to make its cities feel lived-in rather than decorative.
Specific confirmed businesses and locations spotted so far include Sara’s Unisex Salon, Electric Fang Tattoo Shop, the Jack of Hearts strip club, and Only Raw Records — the record label tied to supporting characters Boobie Ike and Dre’Quan Priest. For a full rundown of the people behind those businesses, see our breakdown of GTA 6’s Jason and Lucia and the wider cast.
Beyond the City: The Regions of Leonida
Rockstar’s official materials and screenshot drops have named six distinct regions that make up the state of Leonida:
- Vice City — The dense urban core; downtown high-rises, beaches, and nightlife.
- Leonida Keys — A tropical island chain in the south inspired by the Florida Keys, built for boats, beach towns, and smuggling routes.
- Grassrivers — Subtropical wetlands modeled on the Everglades, featuring airboats, alligators, and swamp hideouts.
- Port Gellhorn — A weathered industrial port town on the Gulf coast with a rougher, blue-collar criminal underbelly.
- Ambrosia — A rural, agriculture-driven region built around sugar refineries and small-town Americana.
- Mount Kalaga — Forested highlands and a national park in the north, geared toward off-road exploration.
That’s a far more varied biome mix than GTA V offered, which was mostly desert, city, and a strip of forest and mountain in the north. Leonida’s design leans into wetlands, coastline, farmland, and dense urban sprawl all within one state.
How Big Is the GTA 6 Map, Really?
This is where we have to be careful, because Rockstar has not published an official size figure for the GTA 6 map. What’s circulating — estimates suggesting Leonida could be somewhere between 1.5x and 2.5x the size of GTA V’s map — comes from fan analysis of trailer footage, leaked coordinate data, and community mapping projects, not an official Rockstar statement.
For reference, GTA V’s map (the state of San Andreas) is most commonly cited at around 36–38 square kilometers (roughly 14 square miles), though Rockstar itself never published an exact figure for that game either — most numbers you see for both games are community-calculated. Worth noting for scale: GTA V’s map was already reported at launch to be larger than GTA IV, San Andreas (the 2004 game), and Red Dead Redemption combined, so Leonida potentially being 1.5x to 2.5x bigger than that would represent one of the largest jumps in scale the series has ever made in a single generation.
Take any specific square-kilometer claim for GTA 6 with a grain of salt until Rockstar or a hands-on preview confirms it. What we can say with confidence is that Leonida spreads its content across more distinct regions than San Andreas did, which should make the world feel bigger in practice even before you get into raw measurements. Rockstar has also historically packed its newer maps with more verticality and interior density than older titles, so even a modest increase in raw land area could translate into a much bigger increase in actual explorable space.
Notable Locations Spotted in Trailers and Screenshots
Beyond the six named regions, specific landmarks and set-piece locations have already shown up in official footage:
| Location | First Seen | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Sinfrontera National Bank | Trailer 2 | Site of a major heist sequence |
| Jack of Hearts (strip club) | Screenshots | Owned/associated with Boobie Ike |
| Only Raw Records | Screenshots | Record label run by Dre’Quan Priest |
| Sara’s Unisex Salon | Ultimate Edition screenshots | Character customization location |
| Electric Fang Tattoo Shop | Ultimate Edition screenshots | Character customization location |
| Leonida Department of Correction | Trailer 1 | Where Lucia is introduced |
What This Means for Exploration and Gameplay
Rockstar hasn’t detailed traversal specifics (vehicle types per region, fast travel, or how quickly you can move between, say, Grassrivers and Vice City), but the regional variety on display strongly suggests more environmental gameplay hooks than GTA V had — airboats through the swamp, smuggling routes through the Keys, off-roading in Mount Kalaga, and dense city driving and verticality in Vice City proper. If Rockstar’s past open worlds are any indication, expect side content and random encounters to be tailored to each biome rather than copy-pasted across the map.
Weather has also been a talking point since Trailer 1, which showed visible storm systems and heavy rain over Vice City. Florida’s real hurricane season is practically a character in itself, and it would be consistent with Rockstar’s obsessive attention to regional detail if dynamic weather — including storms — ends up playing a role in how certain regions behave or which activities are available at a given time. Rockstar hasn’t confirmed specific weather mechanics, so treat this as an informed expectation rather than a locked feature.
For how this setting was gradually revealed, our shot-by-shot trailer breakdown walks through exactly where and when each region first appeared on screen. And if you’re still catching up on the basics — release date, platforms, and pricing — our release date and platforms guide covers that ground.
Frequently Asked Questions
Q: Is GTA 6’s map bigger than GTA 5’s? Almost certainly, based on the number of distinct regions Rockstar has revealed, but there’s no official square-kilometer figure yet. Estimates from fan analysis suggest it could be 1.5x to 2.5x larger, though that’s unconfirmed.
Q: Is Vice City based on a real city? Vice City is Rockstar’s long-running fictional stand-in for Miami, first introduced in 2002’s Grand Theft Auto: Vice City. The GTA 6 version is a modern reimagining, not a period piece.
Q: What regions are confirmed in GTA 6? Six: Vice City, Leonida Keys, Grassrivers, Port Gellhorn, Ambrosia, and Mount Kalaga.
Q: Will the map be time-period accurate to the 1980s like the original Vice City? No. Rockstar has confirmed GTA 6 is set in a modern day, with smartphones, social media, and contemporary culture throughout Leonida.
Q: Are there swamps and alligators in GTA 6? Yes — the Grassrivers region is explicitly modeled on the Everglades, and both trailers and screenshots have shown alligators as part of the environment.
The Bottom Line
Leonida looks like Rockstar’s most geographically ambitious map yet — six distinct regions built around a modern, meticulously detailed Vice City. We’ll keep refining this picture as more footage and, eventually, an official size figure arrive. For everything else confirmed about the game so far, from release timing to the story’s two leads, check out our complete GTA 6 guide.