Real-life Miami and Florida locations in GTA 6

Which real places is GTA 6 based on?

Florida, and Miami in particular. Rockstar’s GTA VI pages we checked never name either: they describe a fictional state, Leonida, and its six regions. Rockstar North’s Rob Nelson told IGN the first thing the studio thinks about is where to set a game, and here it was “Miami and Florida… Vice City and Leonida.” Dazed, which interviewed Rockstar’s team, says Leonida is based on Florida and Vice City on Miami, and VGC’s report on Game Informer’s preview lines up the regions with parts of the state.

This page keeps two things apart. First, what Rockstar’s people and reputable outlets say about real inspiration, which mostly covers whole regions. Second, building-by-building comparisons, most of them made by fans, which are guesses. Our Leonida overview and real stories page hold the wider record.

Is Vice City really Miami?

Reported as yes, and it is the best-supported match. Rockstar’s profile calls Vice City “the sun and fun capital of America” and names Ocean Beach’s pastel art deco hotels, the panaderías of Little Cuba and a cruise port. VGC’s report on Game Informer’s preview says the city leans heavily on Miami for its art deco buildings, beaches and cruise port, and Dazed says Vice City’s Stockyard is based on Wynwood. Our Vice City page has the neighborhoods Rockstar has named.

Which Florida places are the Keys, Grassrivers and the other regions based on?

VGC, reporting on Game Informer’s preview, describes the Leonida Keys as the game’s take on the Florida Keys and says Grassrivers draws on the Everglades. It says Port Gellhorn, which Rockstar calls Leonida’s “forgotten coast”, reflects smaller Florida tourist spots that have declined, and that Mount Kalaga borrows from the culture of the Florida-Georgia border.

Ambrosia is the gap: Rockstar places it “in the heart of Leonida”, and we found no outlet naming a real town behind it. For any region, as we read it, “inspired by” means a general influence, not a copy of a particular town.

Are the buildings in GTA 6 real Miami buildings?

Rockstar hasn’t named a real building behind any of them. A few outlets have given their own readings: Push Square, describing a clip Rockstar reposted from the OnlyInDade Instagram account, calls the Cortez Hotel “a Vice City location inspired by the real world Colony Hotel in Miami”. Most comparisons come from the GTA VI mapping community, published under CC BY 4.0 by GTADB and contributors. They are the mappers’ guesses and not Rockstar’s statements. We only list places whose names also appear in Rockstar’s material or in outlets’ coverage of it.

For example, the mappers compare the Dominion Hotel, named by IGN from Trailer 2, with the Cardozo South Beach, and the Ocean View Hotel, which Rockstar names in a Vintage Vice City image description, with the Clevelander South Beach. Like Push Square, they compare the Cortez Hotel with the Colony Hotel. In the Keys, they compare The Rusty Anchor, the beach bar in Rockstar’s own screenshot, with the Caribbean Club in Key Largo.

Elsewhere, they compare the Thrillbilly Mud Club, whose watermark shows on a clip in Trailer 1, with Redneck Mud Park in Punta Gorda, and the Starlet Motel, whose sign is in Rockstar’s Port Gellhorn screenshot, with an Economy Inn in Lawtey. Each is a comparison, and we would treat none as confirmed unless Rockstar says so.

How can I check a match myself?

At launch, compare what you drive past with the real street. Our GTA 6 map is built on the same community data and says when a placement comes from the mappers. Rockstar says a printable map of Leonida goes on its site on November 19. Until then it hasn’t published one, so any match you see online is a comparison, not an announcement.