How Many Cities Are in GTA 5? Just One: Los Santos

As a long-time GTA fan and avid virtual explorer, one of the most common questions I see is "how many cities are in Grand Theft Auto V?" While previous GTA installments contained multiple sprawling metropolises to uncover, GTA V bucks this trend with only one fully explorable urban area: the mega-city of Los Santos.

But why did Rockstar Games decide to focus on crafting one deeply detailed, diverse city instead of several broader ones? And even with just Los Santos, does GTA V still provide enough variety and gameplay density to rival the multiples cities of GTA games past?

The Urban Sprawl of Los Santos: By the Numbers

• Los Santos spans an astounding 80 square kilometers from the downtown core to the outer reaches of the city and beyond. To put that into perspective:
  • Los Santos is 1.5 times larger than the island of Manhattan.
  • Los Santos covers over 3 times more land than the entire state of San Andreas in GTA: San Andreas
• The city includes a mind-boggling 240,000 buildings and infrastructure pieces for players to enter and explore
• Los Santos neighborhoods have incredible diversity both culturally and geographically, including:
  • The hoods and projects of South Los Santos
  • The plush hills of Rockford Hills (Beverly Hills)
  • The bustling Little Seoul (Koreatown)
  • The boardwalks and beaches of Vespucci (Venice Beach)
  • The studios and mansions of Vinewood (Hollywood)
• Outside the city proper lies a sprawling, equally detailed countryside with small towns, farms, wilderness, a military base, and more for players to uncover

With so much ground to cover just within Los Santos and its outskirts, GTA V hardly feels lacking in scope or scale compared to past games.

The Power of Focus: Rich Details and Satire

And it’s not just the sheer geographic size of Los Santos that makes it feel so expansive. By focusing their world-building efforts on one central city, Rockstar gave Los Santos an incredible level of depth and detail that sets it apart from any other open world city I’ve explored.

Just take a slow drive through Los Santos while really taking time to soak up the sights and sounds. The graffiti-tagged buildings and cracked sidewalks of poorer areas. The pretentious art galleries and hipster coffee shops of the bourgeois city center. The technical experts pitching digital startups to investors in Silicon Valley analogues. The shouts of buskers on beach boardwalks saturated with tourists. The conversations of strangers that reveal humorous social commentary.

Every street corner brims with personality that satirizes and celebrates different aspects of Southern California culture. Tiny gameplay touches where you can play basketball or tennis, buy property, modify vehicles visually and performance-wise, take part in hilarious side activities like yoga or racing. joins together to make Los Santos feel dynamic.

No past GTA city has achieved Los Santos‘ level of gameplay density, reactivity, and attention to detail. It‘s a virtual world that truly lives and breathes in large part due to Rockstar‘s focused efforts on a single city.

Los Santos Map Size vs Other GTA Cities

And keep in mind – these past cities feel smaller than their actual size suggests. Because Los Santos has so much more enterable interiors, recreational activities, dynamic NPCs, and richness at every corner.

So while Los Santos stands alone as the only fully-realized city in GTA V, it provides equal or greater gameplay density than all previous GTA cities combined.

The Future: More GTA Cities to Explore?

With the incredible achievement Rockstar pulled off in crafting Los Santos, it does make me curious what they could do by revisiting Liberty City, Vice City, or the classic San Andreas with today‘s tech and GTA V‘s attention to detail.

Early leaks suggest GTA 6 may bring us back to Vice City with the same level of immersion and expansiveness as Los Santos. I can only imagine what touches and flourishes Rockstar will add to make this new city feel alive.

For now though, I’m still constantly amazed at the depth Los Santos offers after years of playing GTA V and Online. This singular city was clearly a labor of love that sets the bar higher than ever before for open world cities in terms of personality, gameplay opportunities, and technical artistry.

So in the end, I don‘t mind that Los Santos stands alone. Because it demonstrates the impressive focus and worldbuilding expertise Rockstar can achieve when dialing into the essence of one iconic real-world location.

I’m Adam, proud resident of Los Santos and beyond in GTA Online. Hopefully this overview gave you a better understanding of how Los Santos delivers on the scale and variety of past GTA cities, but in an even richer and more immersive package. Let me know your thoughts in the comments!