Real Miami and Florida places in GTA 6

Vice City is GTA’s version of Miami, and the state of Leonida around it is based on Florida. Rockstar’s own GTA 6 pages never name either real place, but Rockstar North told Edge that the project started with a research trip to Miami in 2015. From the trailers, outlets have matched scenes to South Beach, Wynwood, the Florida Keys, the Seven Mile Bridge and the Everglades.

Below is every link between a GTA 6 place and a real one that Rockstar or a major outlet has made, and who made it. Where nobody has stated a link, we say so instead of guessing.

What Rockstar itself says

Confirmed Rockstar’s GTA 6 site calls the setting “Vice City, USA” and “the sunniest place in America”, inside the state of Leonida. It does not use the words Miami or Florida anywhere.

Confirmed The clearest word from Rockstar comes from its developers. In Edge’s preview, published free on GamesRadar, Edge reports that in 2015 Rob Nelson, now co-head of Rockstar North, led a small group to Miami to work out what a return to Vice City could look and feel like. They picked out locations and parts of Florida culture for bigger research teams to study later. Edge says the state was chosen quickly because of its dense cities, swamps and varied landscapes.

Bloomberg’s Jason Schreier added more detail after his own studio visit, as TechRadar reported: Rockstar staff made many trips to Miami, went on police ride-alongs, and artists took aerial photos of the city from a helicopter.

GTA 6 places and their real-life matches

None of these appear on Rockstar’s own pages. They are the outlets’ readings of official footage, which is why we name the outlet each time.

Vice City and Miami

GamesRadar’s Trailer 1 breakdown described the city as modelled on Miami, and Kotaku’s Alyssa Mercante described Leonida and Vice City as Florida and Miami in her December 2023 piece on the first trailer. Mercante tied the art deco buildings to South Beach and the murals to the Wynwood area, and compared the trailer’s packed nightclubs to Miami’s club scene.

Rockstar’s own descriptions, as GamesRadar summarises them, fit the same picture without naming Miami: Ocean Beach has white sand and pastel art deco hotels, Little Cuba is busy and compact, and VC Port claims to be the cruise ship capital of the world. Not announced Rockstar hasn’t said which real neighbourhood each one is modelled on, and we haven’t found a major outlet that pins them down, so we leave them unmatched.

The Keys and the Seven Mile Bridge

Kotaku said Trailer 1 plainly shows the Keys and pointed out the Seven Mile Bridge, which links mainland Florida to the Florida Keys. In GTA 6, the island chain is the Leonida Keys, where Rockstar says Jason works for local drug runners.

Grassrivers and the Everglades

Kotaku named the Everglades among the places the first trailer covers. GamesRadar said the airboat scattering flamingos heavily implies the Everglades are in the game. In GTA 6, the wetland region is Grassrivers, which Rockstar’s press kit describes, as quoted by GamesRadar, as a place of alligators and “weirder discoveries among the mangroves”.

Jason and Lucia’s apartment

In August 2026, Kotaku reported that a fan had matched the couple’s apartment in An Extended Look, Rockstar’s gameplay video, to a light blue condo tower on Bayshore Drive in Miami, using old Google Maps images. Not announced Rockstar hasn’t confirmed it. Kotaku also noticed the match falls apart once Jason drives off: Rockstar has rearranged Miami’s road layout, which Kotaku expected since the map has to be scaled down.

Places with no real-world match yet

Not announced For these regions, we haven’t found Rockstar or a major outlet naming a specific real place, so we don’t list one:

• Port Gellhorn: a faded vacation town on Leonida’s “forgotten” coast, with empty malls and cheap motels
• Ambrosia: an industrial area built around the Allied Crystal sugar refinery, run by a biker gang
• Mount Kalaga: a national park on the state’s northern border
• The Tisha-Wocka flea market and Little Cuba in Vice City

Plenty of fans have guesses for each. We will add a match only once Rockstar or an outlet on our sources list states one.

It’s Miami, but not a copy of Miami

Analysis Expect a city that feels like Miami rather than a street map of it. Kotaku’s apartment story shows the roads don’t follow the real ones, and Edge reports that GTA 6’s whole map is roughly twice the size of GTA 5’s, a lot smaller than the real state. Our map size guide compares the scale, and new Vice City vs the 2002 original shows what returns from the older game. GamesRadar thought Trailer 1 showed updated takes on the original’s Starfish Island and Ocean Beach.

Real Miami is dressing up as Vice City

The link also runs the other way for launch. A “Welcome to Vice City” sign sits on the roof of the Kaseya Center, the Miami Heat’s arena, and the Heat play as Vice City on November 18. In October, GamesRadar reported fans filming GTA styled supercars, led by a Vice City police car, driving around Miami. Our Miami launch post has the full timeline.

What we’ll add at launch

From November 19, we will check every match above against the game itself, add in-game street and district names as they appear, and note any new link Rockstar or a major outlet makes.

Common questions

Is Liberty City in GTA 6?

Not announced Not as a place you can visit, as far as Rockstar has said. Liberty City, GTA’s take on New York, comes up in Lucia’s official profile: her mother has dreamed of a good life “since their days in Liberty City”. See our Jason and Lucia guide.

Can you visit real Miami landmarks by name?

Not announced Rockstar hasn’t named any. Analysis Every GTA 6 place name Rockstar has published so far, from Ocean Beach to VC Port, is a fictional one, so expect real landmarks to turn up under new names.

How big is Leonida compared with Florida?

Rockstar hasn’t given a size in miles or kilometres. Edge reports the map is roughly twice the size of GTA 5’s. See how big the GTA 6 map is.

Related pages

• Vice City
• Every GTA 6 place
• GTA 6 story explained
• GTA 6 Trailer 1 breakdown
• GTA 6 trailer hidden details