Data: Leonida vs Florida
Image: Rockstar Games
GTA 6's state of Leonida is Rockstar's version of Florida: Vice City is Miami, the Leonida Keys are the Florida Keys and Grassrivers is the Everglades. Rockstar never names Florida, but its environment art lead says everything in the game is "geared to getting that full Florida experience".
Below, each of the 6 regions Rockstar named, and 9 places inside them, sits next to the real Florida place outlets tie it to. 4 of the 6 regions are matched by two or more outlets; the rest are labelled for what they are. Checked October 6, 2026.
"So, while we may not have those exact locations, everything we have is geared to getting that full Florida experience!"
Leonida (our atlas)
Florida (schematic)
Filled pin: Reported by two or more outlets. Ring: one outlet. Dashed area: no single real match. Left: our approximate atlas, not the in-game map. Right: drawn from public town coordinates, not traced.
1 Reported
Rockstar: The city captures "the glamour, hustle, and greed of America", and the site names Little Cuba, the Tisha-Wocka flea market, the VC Port and Ocean Beach.
Outlets: Miami New Times calls Vice City "the game's version of Miami and Miami Beach" and matched 20 Miami landmarks in Trailer 1 alone.
Sources: Miami New Times, Miami New Times, IGN, quoting Rockstar's site, PC Gamer: "Inspired by real-life Miami proper" · On our map
2 Reported
Rockstar: "The dress code is casual, the bars are loaded", with some of "the most beautiful and dangerous waters in all of America".
Outlets: Screen Rant, reporting Game Informer's map story, and Game Rant both describe the Leonida Keys as the game's Florida Keys.
Sources: Screen Rant, from Game Informer, Game Rant, IGN, quoting Rockstar's site, PC Gamer, quoting Rockstar's site · On our map
3 Reported
Rockstar: The screenshots show mangroves, airboats and alligators, and the site warns of "deadlier predators and weirder discoveries" than the gators.
Outlets: Screen Rant (from Game Informer), Game Rant and Polygon all describe Grassrivers as Everglades-like.
Sources: Screen Rant, from Game Informer, Polygon: "the Everglades-like Grassrivers region", Game Rant, IGN, PC Gamer, quoting Rockstar's site · On our map
4 Reported
Rockstar: "Leonida's forgotten coast", full of "cheap motels, shut-down attractions, and empty strip malls".
Outlets: Game Informer says it stands in for Florida's smaller, struggling tourist-trap areas (via Screen Rant). For a single place, Dexerto points to Panama City, and Panama City's News Herald reports that fans see their city in it. Rockstar has not named a model.
Sources: Screen Rant, from Game Informer, Dexerto, The News Herald, PC Gamer, quoting Rockstar's site · On our map
5 One outlet
Rockstar: A town where the Allied Crystal sugar refinery provides the jobs and the Final Chapter biker gang "provides almost everything else".
Outlets: Only Dexerto has made the comparison so far: it says the refinery closely resembles the U.S. Sugar refinery in Clewiston. Game Informer calls Ambrosia the manufacturing region (via Screen Rant).
Sources: Dexerto, PC Gamer, quoting Rockstar's site · On our map
6 No match
Rockstar: The park "offers prime hunting, fishing, and off-road trails".
Outlets: Florida has no mountains. Game Informer places Mount Kalaga on the fictional equivalent of the Florida-Georgia line (via Screen Rant), but no outlet we trust has matched it to a specific park, so we pin the border area only.
Sources: Screen Rant, from Game Informer, IGN, quoting Rockstar's site · On our map
Rockstar names places and shows buildings; local and games outlets match them to real ones. Pairings two outlets agree on are marked Reported; single-outlet readings are marked as such.
| In GTA 6 | Real place | Status | Who says so |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ocean Beach | South Beach and Ocean Drive, Miami Beach | Reported | Ocean Beach is Rockstar's name; Miami New Times and Dexerto match its art deco strip to Ocean Drive. (Miami New Times, Dexerto) |
| Ocean View Hotel | The Clevelander, Miami Beach | Reported | Dexerto says the hotel signs are styled the same way; Miami New Times places a Trailer 2 pool scene at "what can only be the Clevelander". (Dexerto, Miami New Times) |
| Nine1Nine nightclub | E11even, downtown Miami | Reported | Both outlets read the club as a nod to E11even; Miami New Times points to its banner planes over the beach. (Miami New Times, Dexerto) |
| Little Cuba | Little Havana | One outlet | Rockstar names Little Cuba and its "bustling panaderias"; Red Bull's map guide reads it as Little Havana. (Red Bull) |
| Sahara Arena, home of the Vice City Narcos | Kaseya Center, home of the Miami Heat | One outlet | Dexerto calls the building's shape unmistakable. The Heat themed their November 18 game "A Night in Vice City". (Dexerto) |
| Kelly County and the VCI Airport signs | Miami-Dade County and Miami International Airport | One outlet | Miami New Times reads the highway signs in Trailer 1 this way, and Catalan Boulevard as Biscayne Boulevard. (Miami New Times) |
| Vice City's port | PortMiami, with the downtown skyline behind | One outlet | Rockstar names the VC Port; Miami New Times matches the trailer's port shot to PortMiami. (Miami New Times) |
| Uncle Jack's Liquor | Big Daddy's Liquors (Flanigan's) | One outlet | Miami New Times points to the mustachioed silhouette on the door. (Miami New Times) |
| The alligator-themed park in Rockstar's marketing | Gatorland, south of Orlando | One outlet | Kotaku's reading; Rockstar has not named the park's model. (Kotaku) |
| Left out | Why |
|---|---|
| Tisha-Wocka flea market and Opa-locka | The name points that way and fan wikis say so, but no outlet we use has made the match yet. |
| Lake Leonida and Lake Okeechobee | Rockstar names Lake Leonida only in the Ultimate Edition copy; no outlet we use has paired it with a real lake. |
| Disney World, SeaWorld, Universal and Cape Canaveral | Asked about them, Rockstar's Paul MacPherson said the game "may not have those exact locations" (Kotaku, IGN). |
| Anything from the 2022 leak or the leaked map | We never use leaked material, so no pairing here relies on it. |
Our take: Leonida is Florida as people picture it, not Florida as it sits on a map. The evidence is in our own tally. Of the nine spots outlets have matched to real places, eight are in or around Miami; the ninth is an alligator park near Orlando. Outside Vice City, every region pairs with a type of place rather than a landmark: island bars, a swamp, a faded resort town, sugar country, and a mountain park in a state that has no mountains. Rockstar's Paul MacPherson said as much when asked about Disney World and Cape Canaveral: the game "may not have those exact locations", but everything is "geared to getting that full Florida experience". So expect Vice City to reward anyone who knows Miami Beach, and the rest of Leonida to feel familiar without being a copy. One caution on our own study: six of the nine spotted matches rest on a single outlet, so read those as likely, not settled, until we can stand in the game and compare.
| Region | Its real match | Our label | Spotted landmarks matched |
|---|---|---|---|
| Vice City | Miami and Miami Beach | Reported | 8, from Ocean Drive to PortMiami |
| Leonida Keys | The Florida Keys | Reported | None yet |
| Grassrivers | The Everglades | Reported | None yet |
| Port Gellhorn | Florida's faded tourist towns | Reported | None yet |
| Ambrosia | Sugar towns by Lake Okeechobee | One outlet | None yet |
| Mount Kalaga | No real match | No match | None yet |
Our count from the study above. The ninth spotted place, the alligator-themed park in Rockstar's marketing that one outlet pairs with Gatorland, hasn't been tied to a region.
The gap between Vice City and everything else is the clearest finding. The city has a match for a beach, a neighbourhood, a hotel, a nightclub, an arena, an airport's county, a port and a liquor store. The other five regions are matched only as whole areas, and Mount Kalaga not at all; no outlet has tied a landmark inside any of them to a real place.
One single-outlet match is about to get a real-world echo. Dexerto pairs the game's Sahara Arena, home of the Vice City Narcos, with the Kaseya Center, home of the Miami Heat. On November 18, the night before launch, the Heat and Rockstar turn the Kaseya Center into Vice City for a game against the Milwaukee Bucks, with a Vice City court and new uniforms, broadcast on ESPN. Once the game is out, anyone can hold the in-game arena up against the one they saw on TV that night.
Reported: two or more outlets make the same comparison. One outlet: only one outlet has, so treat it as a lead. No match: no outlet we use names a single real place. Rockstar itself has confirmed no pairing by name, so nothing here is marked Confirmed; what Rockstar does say about each place is quoted from its site or interviews, and linked.
The left map is our own Leonida atlas, drawn from Rockstar's region names and rough compass positions, with pins at approximate spots. The right map is a schematic Florida drawn from the approximate coordinates of coastal towns and state-line points. Neither is traced from a map, and the two are not to the same scale. We never use the leaked map or anything that traces back to it.
On launch day, November 19, 2026, we check every pairing against the in-game map, upgrade or drop labels, add the places the game names, and update the downloads and the embed the same day.
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Leonida vs real Florida, GTA 6 Cheat Sheet, https://gta6cheatsheet.com/gta-6/leonida-vs-florida/ (last checked October 6, 2026)
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Yes, though Rockstar never names Florida. Its site calls Leonida "the sunshine state", and Rockstar's Paul MacPherson told Game Informer that everything in the game is "geared to getting that full Florida experience" (as Kotaku and IGN reported).
Miami and Miami Beach. Miami New Times calls Vice City "the game's version of Miami and Miami Beach" and matched 20 real Miami landmarks in Trailer 1, from Ocean Drive hotels to 500 Brickell.
The Everglades. Screen Rant (reporting Game Informer), Polygon and Game Rant all describe Grassrivers as the game's Everglades: mangroves, airboats and alligators.
Possibly. Game Informer says Port Gellhorn stands in for Florida's smaller, struggling tourist-trap towns; Dexerto points to Panama City, and Panama City's News Herald reports that fans see their city in it. Rockstar has not named a model.
Probably not as such. Asked about Disney World, SeaWorld, Universal and Cape Canaveral, Rockstar's Paul MacPherson said the game "may not have those exact locations". Kotaku notes an alligator park in the marketing that looks like Gatorland.
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