GTA 6official

How big is the GTA 6 map compared to GTA 5?

GTA 6's map, Leonida, is roughly twice the size of GTA 5's map and three times the size of Red Dead Redemption 2's, according to Rob Nelson, Rockstar North's co-studio head and head of development, speaking on record to content creator TGG during a preview visit to Rockstar North's Edinburgh studio. That is a developer comparison, not an official square kilometer spec. Rockstar has never published an exact figure for either game.

Published Sep 9, 2026.

Official Grand Theft Auto VI key art showing Jason and Lucia — Official Rockstar key art. Rockstar has never published a square kilometer figure for Leonida; the twice-as-big comparison comes from developer Rob Nelson, not a spec sheet.Image: Rockstar Games. Source

How solid is this? Confirmed by the publisher or an official channel.

The comparison, in Rockstar's own words

The number circulating since late August 2026 comes from one place: Rob Nelson, Rockstar North's co-studio head and head of development, talking on camera to YouTuber TGG. Nelson told him GTA 6's world is "twice the size of GTA 5, and three times the size of Red Dead Redemption 2." He went further on Vice City specifically, saying it alone is twice the size of Los Santos, and that once you count the surrounding suburbs, the gap widens to eleven times larger than Los Santos and its surrounding areas. That is the whole official record on GTA 6's size as of this post. No square kilometer number, no acreage, just those ratios, stated once, by a named Rockstar developer, on the record. Every other figure you will read below is either a calculation built on top of that ratio or an independent fan estimate that predates it.

Where and how Nelson said it

Rockstar invited a small group of international content creators to its Rockstar North studio in Edinburgh ahead of the Netflix premiere of GTA VI: An Extended Look on August 27, 2026. TGG was one of them, and by his own account spent close to three hours at the studio, roughly two and a half of which was Nelson personally walking him through the game and taking requests on where to go and what to look at. The size comparison came out of that conversation and was first published in TGG's own video. ScreenRant, PC Gamer, Video Games Chronicle, Sportskeeda and Kotaku all picked it up afterward, crediting TGG's video as the source rather than any Rockstar press release, because there was not one. Nelson's exact words are the same across every outlet's report, which is what happens when they are all transcribing the same clip rather than five sites paraphrasing each other.

Poster for Grand Theft Auto VI: An Extended Look — Poster for the August 27, 2026 Extended Look. Rob Nelson gave TGG the size comparison during a studio visit ahead of this premiere.Image: Rockstar Games. Source

Turning twice as big into an actual number

GTA 5's map size is not officially published either, so any square kilometer figure for GTA 6 is a guess built on top of another guess. Community measurements for GTA 5's Los Santos and Blaine County land on different numbers depending on whether they count open water: Beebom's own measurement puts the full bounding area, land and sea, at about 49 square miles, 127 square kilometers, while other community tallies that count only playable landmass and near shore water land closer to 29 to 31 square miles, 75 to 80 square kilometers. Both figures are real measurements, they are just measuring different things. GameRant did not have to pick between those two GTA 5 figures, because it ran each half of Nelson's quote against a different baseline game. Doubling a roughly 31 square mile figure for GTA 5 lands at 62 square miles; tripling a roughly 29 square mile figure for Red Dead Redemption 2 lands at 87. The 62 to 87 square mile range GameRant published is the gap between those two separate calculations, not two rival guesses at the same map, and the outlet adds its own caveat on Nelson's number: "it's possible that the Rockstar developers were not speaking literally and more by their gut, and so it's possible that it's slightly smaller or bigger." Treat that range as a rough translation of a developer's rounded comparison, not a spec Rockstar has confirmed.

Official cover art for Grand Theft Auto VI — Official Rockstar cover art. Rockstar has not published a square mile or square kilometer figure for Leonida, the setting shown here.Image: Rockstar Games. Source

Vice City alone versus Los Santos, and why the suburb gap is bigger

The city to city comparison is the part of Nelson's quote that is easiest to picture: Vice City by itself is twice the size of Los Santos. That is one dense urban map against another, which is the fairest apples to apples comparison in the whole conversation since neither side is padded out with rural county. The eleven times figure, for Vice City plus its surrounding suburbs against Los Santos and its surrounding areas, is the bigger number precisely because suburbs are cheap to build compared to a dense city core, so a developer willing to build more low density sprawl can inflate that ratio fast without the city itself growing at the same rate. It is a real number Nelson gave TGG on record, but it describes a different, much larger footprint than the two times Vice City number, and outlets that only quote the eleven times figure without the two times one are describing a bigger effective difference than the city comparison alone supports.

Jason and Lucia posing outside the neon-lit Ocean View Hotel in Vice City in Grand Theft Auto VI — Vice City's neon strip, the dense urban core Rob Nelson said is twice the size of GTA 5's Los Santos.Image: Rockstar Games. Source

What fans estimated before Rockstar said anything

Independent size estimates for Leonida existed well before Nelson's August 2026 comments, built by fans working from the map data that surfaced in the September 2022 leak. This site does not link or host leaked material, but the leak's existence and the fact that it contained an in progress version of the map are already public record, and separate community mapping efforts, most visibly the GTAForums community's GTA 6 Mapping Project, used units from Rockstar's RAGE engine visible in that footage to build a rough comparison map. Sportskeeda's reporting on that project cites GTAForums user lxr putting the ratio at 2.55 times GTA 5's map, and Reddit user anli2132 separately estimating 2.7 times, or 2.4 times if you exclude the panhandle shaped stretch in the north. Both estimates are close to Nelson's later two times figure, but they come from measuring an unfinished, leaked build over two years before launch, not the shipping game, so treat them as a rough historical data point that happened to land near the real number, not as confirmation of it.

Vice City postcard artwork for Grand Theft Auto VI — Official Vice City postcard art. Fan estimates of Leonida's size predate every piece of official marketing, built instead from the September 2022 leak.Image: Rockstar Games. Source

Red Dead Redemption 2 is the other half of the same quote

Nelson's comparison to Red Dead Redemption 2, three times the size of Leonida, gets repeated less often than the GTA 5 comparison but comes from the exact same sentence in the exact same interview. RDR2's map is itself frequently cited around 29 square miles, close to the lower community estimate for GTA 5's playable area, which puts the two baselines Nelson chose to compare against in roughly the same size bracket as each other. That matters for reading the quote correctly: Nelson was not comparing GTA 6 to one small map and one large map to make the number look better. GTA 5 and RDR2 land close together by most community measurements, and GTA 6 beating both of them by twice and three times respectively, rather than by wildly different multiples, is at least internally consistent with a single much bigger map rather than two different exaggerations.

Jason and Lucia pulling on bandana masks ahead of a robbery in Grand Theft Auto VI — Jason and Lucia gearing up for a job in Leonida. Rob Nelson's size comparison, made in the same on-record interview as his GTA 5 comparison, also named Red Dead Redemption 2.Image: Rockstar Games. Source

What is still unknown

Rockstar has not published an official square kilometer or square mile figure for Leonida, and has given no date for when, or whether, it plans to. Nelson's comparison is the only on record developer statement on the subject, and nobody outside Rockstar has independently measured the finished map, because nobody outside Rockstar has played the finished game. It is also unconfirmed whether Nelson's two times and three times figures describe total landmass, total map footprint including water, or explorable area excluding locked off zones, since he did not specify and no outlet that reported the quote asked him to clarify. Until Rockstar publishes its own number or the game ships and the community can measure it directly, every square mile or square kilometer figure attached to GTA 6, including the ranges in this post, is a calculated estimate, not a confirmed spec.

Sources

ScreenRant2026-08-27

GTA 6 Map Size Officially Confirmed By Rockstar

View source →

PC Gamer

GTA 6 map is apparently 3 times larger than Red Dead Redemption 2's, twice as large as GTA 5's

View source →

Video Games Chronicle2026-08-28

Grand Theft Auto 6's map is three times bigger than Red Dead Redemption 2

View source →

GameRant

GTA 6's Open-World Map Compared to GTA 5, RDR2

View source →

Sportskeeda

GTA 6 mapping project hints at a 2.55x bigger map than GTA 5: Report

View source →

Beebom

GTA 5 Map Guide: All Locations, Size, Landmarks, and More

View source →

Kotaku

GTA 6's Vice City Is Rockstar's Biggest Yet And The Whole Map Is Three Times Larger Than Red Dead Redemption 2