GTA 6 map size: what we know about Leonida’s area
What a GTA 6 map roughly twice the size of GTA V means, where the 125 and 85.6 km² estimates came from, and why 21 by 20 km is not the land area.
The GTA 6 map is roughly twice the size of the GTA V map, based on remarks by Rob Nelson that TGG relayed after visiting Rockstar North. The available sources do not yet establish the exact area of the GTA 6 map in square kilometres. The figures of 125 and 85.6 km² come from fan reconstructions made in different years. Neither is a measured size of the finished game.
Leonida, the fictional state in GTA 6, includes Vice City and other places. Los Santos, the city used for comparison, is in GTA V.
The difficulty is that “map size” can mean different things: the whole map, land alone, a city and its suburbs, or the rectangle containing a map drawing. Below, we separate those measures and trace the most prominent estimates. Sources were checked on 14 October 2026.
What Nelson said about the map size
TGG visited Rockstar North and watched Rob Nelson, one of GTA 6’s development leads, play in free roam for about two and a half hours. The blogger had also seen an extended demonstration beforehand. He did not say that he had three hours to play the game himself or that he travelled across the entire state.
At 08:52 in his video “I Saw 3 Hours of GTA 6 at Rockstar North”, TGG turns to the map and relays four comparisons attributed to Nelson:
| What is compared | Estimate as relayed by TGG |
|---|---|
| GTA 6 map and GTA V map | Roughly twice as large |
| GTA 6 map and Red Dead Redemption 2 map | Roughly three times as large |
| Vice City itself and Los Santos | Roughly twice as large |
| Vice City with its surrounding suburbs and Los Santos with its surroundings | An elevenfold comparison |
This carries more weight than an anonymous image: the speaker and circumstances of the conversation are known. But this segment supplies no area in km², scaled map, or explanation of which water and inaccessible areas were counted.
The elevenfold comparison is particularly easy to misread. TGG mentions Vice City separately before talking about the city and its surroundings. This is not a claim that the entire game world is eleven times as large as GTA V. The boundaries of the suburbs were not defined in the conversation either, so the ratio cannot be converted into a precise area of urban development.
Rockstar’s official site presents islands, wetlands and other locations alongside Vice City. Our guide to Leonida’s regions explains how they differ.
GTA 6 map area: where 125 and 85.6 km² came from
The 125 km² estimate appeared long before the extended 2026 demonstration. In a GTAForums discussion of a mapping project, participants quoted a calculation by user lxr on 12 April 2024: a new map drawing contained 125 km² of land, equivalent to 2.55 times the area of the GTA V map. It referred to a fan model from that period. It was neither a map size published by Rockstar nor a measurement of the current YANIS V16 fan reconstruction.
In September 2026, Notebookcheck described a different estimate: about 85.6 km² of land in V16, compared with nearly 110 km² in V15. The publication linked the revision to refinements in Leonida’s scale and shape. It did not publish a full method for identifying land, so precision to one decimal place should not be mistaken for proven precision about the game world.
Here is how to read the figures:
| Figure | Origin | What it describes |
|---|---|---|
| 125 km² | lxr estimate quoted on GTAForums in April 2024 | Land in an early fan reconstruction |
| Nearly 110 km² | V15 figure in a Notebookcheck article dated 21 September 2026 | An earlier community estimate of land area |
| About 85.6 km² | The same Notebookcheck article, for V16 | A revised community estimate of land area |
The smaller number in the newer drawing does not prove that Rockstar reduced the map. The people behind the reconstruction may have refined the coastline or scale. The outcome of their work with the source material changed; this table does not show how the game itself changed.
For the same reason, taking the midpoint between 85.6 and 125 km² would be misleading. They are not upper and lower bounds of one verified measurement. They are estimates from different models with no established common method.
Why 21 by 20 km does not mean 420 km² of land
The Reddit description of the YANIS V16 update specifies a new 1 by 1 km grid and overall dimensions of 21 by 20 km. Multiplying the sides gives 420 km². But that calculation measures the rectangle of the drawing.
On the reconstruction itself, water occupies a substantial part of that rectangle. The land has an uneven outline, with a lake, canals and wetlands inside it, while the island chain stretches separately from the mainland. None of this becomes one continuous land mass simply because it fits within the frame.
Even water area needs a definition. Do we count only bays between the islands, or also the sea up to the image edge? Does that edge match the limit a player will be able to reach by boat? Where is the boundary between water and land in the wetlands? The grid description does not answer the questions needed for such a measurement.
The figure of 420 therefore has a clear meaning: the area of a notional rectangle at the scale claimed by the map’s creators. There is no basis for calling it the area of GTA 6’s accessible world. You can examine the drawing and its legends more closely in our article on the map and interactive markers.
How scale changes a comparison
To compare two maps, they first need to be brought to the same scale. Giving two images the same width does not achieve this: a file can be enlarged, shrunk or cropped without changing the geography it depicts.
Scale errors affect area more than they may seem to. In a hypothetical calculation, if every distance on a drawing increases by a factor of 1.2, its area increases by a factor of 1.44 under that uniform enlargement. This is a geometry example, not a new estimate for Leonida. It explains why a small scale correction can noticeably change the result in km².
Reddit offers a clear example of how the boundary matters. Comparing a GTA 6 map reconstruction with the GTA V map, user anli2132 obtained a ratio of about 2.7, or about 2.4 without a proposed northern projection that the community calls the panhandle. In the post, the author warned that the result depends on a mapping project still in development. Commenters also disputed the scale and how well the included territory is known.
The useful point is the calculation’s sensitivity: adding a proposed area changes the result. The post itself does not establish that this northern projection will appear on the release map. Such figures need to be read together with the source drawing, its version and the selected outline, rather than preserving only the largest multiplier.
Can flight time reveal the area?
Another estimation method circulated in August 2026. 24 Kanal quoted a post by user Luchenzo: by his interpretation, a plane crosses about half of the proposed map in 1 minute 40 seconds. He compared this with a flight across GTA V in a similar plane and suggested a ratio of 1.9 to 2.2. This is a player’s reasoning from a recording and a map drawing, not a Rockstar measurement.
The method has two separate problems. First, we need the speed, route, start and end points of the flights being compared. A similar aircraft in two games does not guarantee the same speed. And “half the map” requires reliably known boundaries. Without them, flight time cannot be confidently converted even into a distance across the state.
Then comes another step: route length is not area. Even if the north-to-south distance were known, area would still require the territory’s width or outline. A long island and an almost square mainland can have the same length but different areas.
When we checked, Luchenzo’s original account was suspended, leaving the quotation of the post in 24 Kanal’s report. We did not verify the video recording or the plane’s speed.
Map area, travel time and world density
Doubling an area does not promise to double the time of every journey. The length of a particular road depends on its route, and travel time also depends on the vehicle. Area alone cannot tell us how long a trip from Vice City to another part of Leonida will take.
World density is a separate measure too. An additional square kilometre might contain city blocks, water, forest or industrial land. The number of accessible interiors and activities cannot be derived from area. For what Rockstar has shown of the city itself, see our look at modern Vice City.
We also cannot simply transfer the dimensions of real Florida to Leonida. The fictional state may compress distances, rearrange places and combine different real-world inspirations. Measuring area requires the geometry of the game world, not the boundaries of the real state.
Which size estimates are reliable for now?
For now, the useful point of reference is TGG’s account that the map is roughly twice the size of GTA V’s. The 125 and 85.6 km² estimates describe different fan reconstructions and do not establish the area of the release version.
A more reliable measurement will become possible when the release version’s geometry and a justified scale are available. A comparison will also need to say separately what was counted: land, land with inland waters, or all accessible territory. The same method would then need to be applied to GTA V.
Checking any new figure begins with three simple questions: who calculated it, from which map version, and what did they include in the area? If a publication gives only a large number without these conditions, its precision remains unknown even if several sites repeat the result.
Sources
- TGG: I Saw 3 Hours of GTA 6 at Rockstar North: viewing circumstances at 02:37 and map comparisons at 08:52. The English auto-generated subtitles for the relevant segments were checked.
- VGC, 28 August 2026: corroborates the reporting chain and circumstances of the demonstration.
- GTAForums, April discussion of the mapping project: preserved quotations of lxr’s estimate. Available search copies of thread excerpts were read; the original calculation was not checked.
- Reddit description of the YANIS V16 update and Notebookcheck, 21 September 2026: the reconstruction’s grid and dimensions, and separately attributed estimates of its land area.
- anli2132’s comparison on Reddit: shows how the result depends on a proposed northern area and includes objections raised in the discussion.
- 24 Kanal’s account of the flight-time calculation: preserves a quotation from Luchenzo. The original X account was suspended when checked; the recording is not used as a verified measurement.
- Rockstar: places in Leonida: official geography without an area in km² published on this page.
- YANIS and GTADB contributors: V16 map drawing, data and images under CC BY 4.0. The cartographic portion was cropped and scaled; editorial lettering was added to the cover without changing the geography. The official Vice_City_10 screenshot came from Rockstar’s collection, was reduced as a whole, and received a small GTA6VC label.
