GTA 6 map size: how big Leonida is compared with GTA 5

Rockstar hasn’t published how many square kilometers the GTA 6 map covers.

In August, something more useful than another community calculation showed up: a comparison.

According to TGG, after visiting Rockstar North and talking with Rob Nelson, the studio’s head of development, Leonida is roughly twice the size of the GTA 5 map and three times the playable area of Red Dead Redemption 2.

We have the scale. The ruler, not yet.

Is the GTA 6 map twice the size of GTA 5?

It’s the most solid comparison we have so far. But it’s worth looking at where it comes from.

TGG visited Rockstar North ahead of the GTA 6: An Extended Look presentation. There, it saw several hours of the game and talked with Rob Nelson.

After that visit, TGG attributed four comparisons to Nelson:

Leonida is around twice the GTA 5 map.

Its area would be about three times Red Dead Redemption 2’s playable area.

Vice City would be roughly twice the size of Los Santos.

And the built-up area around Vice City would be much larger than the one surrounding Los Santos.

Outlets like VGC later picked up those statements.

They don’t come from our calculator or from a fan-made map. They’re comparisons TGG attributes to Nelson after visiting Rockstar North.

What’s still missing is pretty physical: a map, a scale bar and an official figure next to it.

So how many km² is the GTA 6 map?

Not yet.

And this is where two calculators can start with “twice” and end up very far apart.

A widely used community measurement puts GTA 5 at about 48.15 km² (18.6 sq mi) if we count land.

Throw in the water too and the figure climbs to 75.84 km² (29.3 sq mi).

Now hit ×2 on both.

48.15 × 2 = 96.3 km² (37.2 sq mi).

But:

75.84 × 2 = 151.68 km² (58.6 sq mi).

Same “twice.”

55.38 km² (21.4 sq mi) between one answer and the other.

In one calculator you entered land. In the other, land and water. The ×2 is the same; what you put under it is different.

And that’s the missing piece: Nelson didn’t specify what he was doubling when he talked about the GTA 5 map.

That’s why 96.3 km² and 151.68 km² have a calculator behind them, with no Rockstar spec sheet.

If you see one of those numbers paired with a plain “GTA 6 is this big,” check first what went into the calculator.

The community map now estimates about 85.6 km² of land

You can also put down the calculator and take a ruler to the community map.

State of Leonida is currently on version 16.0, released September 20, 2026.

Based on that reconstruction, recent analyses put the land area at around 85.6 km² (33.1 sq mi).

The figure looks very precise.

The map we’re measuring, less so.

State of Leonida tries to rebuild Leonida before Rockstar releases the final map. It combines roads, coastlines, buildings, screenshots and other reference points to place each piece.

You move a road. You move a coastline.

The number moves behind it.

In 2024, one community reconstruction came in at around 125 km² (48.3 sq mi) of land.

Version 15 was close to 110 km² (42.5 sq mi).

Version 16 has dropped toward 85.6 km².

Leonida hasn’t lost those kilometers between one version and the next.

What shrinks is the drawing we make before we have the whole map in front of us.

Why the estimates change so much

You want to measure an island.

Problem: you can’t see all of it yet.

You spot a bridge in a trailer.

A highway in a screenshot.

A coastline behind a character.

A building that shows up from two different angles.

You put each piece on paper and sketch in the gaps.

Then Rockstar releases another image.

The bridge was closer to the coast than it looked. You shift the road. You change the shoreline. The figure you’d calculated underneath changes with it.

That’s reconstructing before you have the blueprint.

You can get incredibly close.

And tomorrow move half the coast.

That’s why State of Leonida is very useful for tracking how the world might be laid out, but its current 85.6 km² is no GTA 6 spec.

You can see the six confirmed regions and the full reconstruction in our GTA 6 map guide.

GTA 6 vs GTA 5

“Twice” doesn’t mean taking two GTA 5 maps and gluing them together, either.

Where those kilometers land matters.

GTA 5 packs much of its urban fabric into Los Santos and then opens up into Blaine County. Leonida can spread its area out differently.

According to the statements attributed to Nelson, Vice City would be roughly twice Los Santos, and the gap would grow even wider once you count the surrounding built-up areas.

Rockstar has already confirmed very different places inside Leonida: Vice City, Leonida Keys, Grassrivers, Port Gellhorn, Ambrosia and Mount Kalaga National Park.

The km² tell you how much fits.

The roads, cities and towns decide what happens to you between one end and the other.

Vice City vs Los Santos

Here comes the pencil again.

Where do you draw the edge of the city?

One measurement on version 16 traces the continuous urban area and calculates about 16.6 km² (6.4 sq mi) for Vice City versus 9.1 km² (3.5 sq mi) for Los Santos.

That would make Vice City around 1.8 times bigger.

Another measurement puts the boundaries in different places and gets roughly 13 km² vs 10.8 (5.0 vs 4.2 sq mi).

Same cities.

Two pencils drawing the edge in different places.

Until Rockstar releases the final map and defines where it considers Vice City to end, turning the city into an exact figure will keep depending on the method.

GTA 6 vs Red Dead Redemption 2

The other comparison attributed to Nelson puts Leonida at around three times the playable area of Red Dead Redemption 2.

I wouldn’t run another multiplication here to manufacture some supposed km².

Community measurements of RDR2 also shift depending on which zones count as playable and how the map is drawn.

If the first figure already moves with the method, multiplying it by three doesn’t nail it down.

It just produces another figure.

The useful comparison is still the reported ratio:

GTA 6: roughly three times RDR2’s playable area.

Official square kilometers: none yet.

Bigger doesn’t mean fuller

Two maps can be the same size and play completely differently.

In one, you floor it and kilometers go by with barely a building.

In another, every so often there’s an intersection, a neighborhood, a town or a turnoff.

The km² tell you how much space it takes up.

They don’t tell you what happens inside.

The statements attributed to Nelson about Vice City and its surroundings are interesting precisely because they also talk about built-up area.

After that, the game will have to do the talking.

How many doors open. How many activities pop up along the way. How the cities connect. How many minutes separate one end from the other.

None of those answers fits inside a simple km².

Which figure to use for now

If you want the short answer:

Rockstar hasn’t published official km² for the GTA 6 map.

The most solid reported comparison puts Leonida at around twice the GTA 5 map and three times the playable area of Red Dead Redemption 2.

The 96.3 km² and 151.68 km² going around online are calculations made by doubling two different GTA 5 measurements.

The 85.6 km² is a land estimate based on version 16 of a community reconstruction.

Those are three different kinds of figure.

Best not to put them in the same box.

What isn’t confirmed

Rockstar hasn’t published an official area for Leonida in km² or square miles.

It also hasn’t clarified whether the “roughly twice GTA 5” comparison refers to land, total area or some other way of measuring the world.

State of Leonida and its measurements are a community reconstruction, not Rockstar’s final map.

The exact Vice City vs Los Santos figures also change depending on where the urban boundary is drawn.

And we still don’t have another number the map will end up having: how many minutes separate one end of Leonida from the other.

GTA 6 comes out November 19, 2026 on PS5 and Xbox Series X|S.

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Primary and attributed sources: Rockstar Games, official Grand Theft Auto VI material; statements by Rob Nelson during TGG’s visit to Rockstar North, later reported by TGG.

Secondary sources: VGC for TGG’s visit and the comparisons attributed to Rob Nelson; GTATracker for the GTA 5 measurements and the distinction between derived calculations and community measurements; Mapheist for tracking the State of Leonida estimates.

Community source: State of Leonida, version 16.0 from September 20, 2026.

Last checked: September 27, 2026.