HD GTA Geography: the State of San Andreas

[CynicalMexican]

Hello, I thought this would be a fun topic to post, and write about, since there's so much about the geography of the HD Universe that we don't really know, but I think it would be fun to piece together based on the in-game hints that we get.

 

In-Game San Andreas

 

In the HD Universe, the only parts of the state of San Andreas (which is located on the West Coast in place of California and possibly Nevada as well) that we see are of course, Los Santos and Blaine counties.

 

 

It can be assumed that Los Santos is located roughly where real-life Los Angeles would be located, though the geography of Los Santos County and Blaine County differs rather significantly from real-life; of course, the Alamo Sea is directly north of LS, rather than Southeast; additionally, Blaine County seems to be a giant mish-mash of Ventura, San Bernardino, and Kern County; Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo seem to be skipped over, as Morro Bay appears to be the closest equivalent to Paleto Bay.

 

Speculative Areas

 

Paleto County

In the in-game dialogue of the mission "Bust Out", Lester mentions a "Paleto County" and the "Paleto River", it can only be assumed this is a county that is directly north of Blaine County, with its own unique cities. Given the rough construction of geography, Paleto Bay may exist in place of Monterey and Kings Counties, with some influence from San Luis Obisipo County. Major settlements in this area include Monterey and Hanford, and this area in particular marks the transition between Los Angeles and the San Francisco Bay Area.

 

Red County

Red County is mentioned in a Liberty Tree article in GTA 4, and is mentioned in the truck radio in GTA 5. Where Red County may exist, I don't know, since very little is known about it. It shares a similar name to Orange County, but it appears to be a more rural county; perhaps Red County could be based on either Inyo, Tulare, Fresno, or Riverside counties, but that is purely speculation.

 

Flint County

Flint County is also mentioned in the GTA 4 internet; where Flint County is supposed to be is a bit speculative as well; as in GTA SA it appeared to be based on Inyo County with its appaerance, yet its location corresponded to Ventura County. Obviously, Flint County does not appear next to Los Santos in this universe, so Flint County might exist anywhere in the state.

 

Orange County and San Diego equivalents

Sadly, there isn't much known about what a San Diego GTA 5 equivalent is or looks like, although it can be assumed that it exists directly south of Los Santos.

 

The only thing vaguely hinting at Orange County probably existing next east to the Palomino Highlands is one thing; the Glory Hole Theme Park. It has an entire site dedicated to it in GTA 4, and it is clearly a parody of Disneyland in Orange County, though it appears that it could be a parody also of Six Flags, and the location of the theme park is more north of the state.

 

San Fierro

We know that San Fierro exists because it is frequently referenced; it is definitely different from its rendition in GTA San Andreas and probably resembles the real life geography more.

 

While San Fierro makes no physical appearances, the map of Watch Dogs 2  gives us insight into what San Fierro and her surrounding areas might look like.

 

We can safely assume that the Foster Valley has areas based on Santa Clara and Stanford and so on, there is a GTA version of Oakland (Oakfield perhaps?), and Bayside probably returns. I would imagine San Jose and Berkeley must exist with their own version as well (San Jorge and Barclay, perhaps).

 

Las Venturas

Las Venturas does make some appearances, most especially in the GTA 4 Poker TV programs.

 

It is unknown if Las Venturas is meant to be part of the State of San Andreas, but there is evidence pointing to California and Nevada being one great state in the GTA Universe as San Andreas. The most compelling are these scratch tickets:

latest (189×111) (nocookie.net)

 

These are state lottery scratch tickets. It is curious that they would depict Las Venturas, indicating that it is part of the same state. Most likely, Las Venturas looks much different too, probably more closer to its real-life counterpart.

 

Other Nevada Counties

Here's a really interesting snip:

 

The map is automatically zoomed here, not displaying the full state area. However, we see that this portion of San Andreas state differs significantly from real life Nevada counties:

 

This indicates that the counties are far larger sized, yet still consistent with the shape of Nevada. Bone County seems to exist in place of Clark County.

 

I hope this was a fun analysis. Discuss and speculate!

 

[Rico Suave]

Interesting post. The GTA world is a weird place. Real locations mixed with created locations. There's that world map in one of the barbershops. I wonder if Rockstar could even explain it. Lol

[Yannerrins]

There was also a Majestic County in beta versions of GTA V.

Name is similar to Imperial County - real county where Salton Sea placed in. So, it's easy to assume that in GTA V beta Blaine County was splitted in two - Blaine County in northwest, based on Ventura, and Majestic County in southeast, based on Imperial.

[Zello]

I wonder what the parody of Sacramento the capital of California would be like 

Edited August 1, 2021 by Zello

[Leotardo]

It's important to note that one of the Rockstar created crews in Social Club,Las Venturas Bookies described as "The only safe bet in San Andreas."

[The Journey]

I think Las Venturas is still part of San Andreas. Tierra Robada replaces the Sierra Nevada, but that's still no reason to think "Robada" would be a separate state.

 

Edited August 1, 2021 by J LaFleur

[universetwisters]

On 8/1/2021 at 2:41 AM, Zello said:

I wonder what the parody of Sacramento the capital of California would be like 

 

Sackramento lolololol like ball sack geddit!?!?!?

 

It wouldn’t surprise me if they did do that tbh

[H-G]

@CynicalMexican: That's a pretty nice geographical sketch right there. I bet the developers themselves didn't even put this much mind into the map while designing it, great work.

Edited August 1, 2021 by H-G

[CynicalMexican]

I went ahead and made a concept map because why not.

 

[Yannerrins]

4 hours ago, CynicalMexican said:

I went ahead and made a concept map because why not.

 

 

Why Majestic County is placed near San Dario if lore analogue of Salton Sea is placed near LS?

[CynicalMexican]

I wanted to have it be closer to SD since it's meant to be Imperial County.

[Zello]

San Diego would be cool to see in GTA. Unlikely to ever happen since in terms of Southern California cities LA gets all the shine. San Diego also has the Mexican border and Tijuana next to it so that would be cool af to see too.

Edited August 3, 2021 by Zello

[Ash_735]

Just want to say, it's nice to see Watch_Dogs 2's SF map get some love, easily one of the better things about the game and it would've been amazing if we were allowed to port it to GTAV and touch some things up.

[CynicalMexican]

31 minutes ago, Ash_735 said:

Just want to say, it's nice to see Watch_Dogs 2's SF map get some love, easily one of the better things about the game and it would've been amazing if we were allowed to port it to GTAV and touch some things up.

 

Imagine GTA 5's map + WD2 map on RDR2 RAGE engine. A gamer can dream.

 

I did add WD2 San Francisco because I feel it more or less would be close to R*'s version of it, though I'd imagine some key areas such as Berkeley and San Jose would be present. Plus we don't have much else to visualize San Fierro

[Yannerrins]

12 hours ago, CynicalMexican said:

I wanted to have it be closer to SD since it's meant to be Imperial County.

 

So, Sandy Shores now placed near San Dario, than LS?

[Ash_735]

12 minutes ago, Yannerrins said:

 

So, Sandy Shores now placed near San Dario, than LS?

To be fair, Sandy Shores in GTAV is in the completely wrong place, it should've been EAST of Los Santos, not north. There should've been a lot more space between them too, such as areas based on Joshua Tree, Cathedral City, etc.

[Yannerrins]

3 minutes ago, Ash_735 said:

To be fair, Sandy Shores in GTAV is in the completely wrong place, it should've been EAST of Los Santos, not north. There should've been a lot more space between them too, such as areas based on Joshua Tree, Cathedral City, etc.

Then it's logical to redraw map completely than using standart GTA V map.

Add more neighbourhoods to LS, suburban towns, North Vinewood area, Quincyland theme park, etc.

 

But this isn't HD universe anymore.

Edited August 4, 2021 by Yannerrins

[CynicalMexican]

All right guys.

 

I re-did the map again, since I wasn't too satisfied with the work I made last time. This map is a bit more refined, with more properly defined borders, more counties, named settlements, and a bit better scaling. This time, I also wanted to re-make the Nevada counties and have them be more in-line with the ones we saw on the poker program in GTA 4, since that's the only part of the San Andreas map we see in the HD Universe aside from Los Santos/Blaine County, of course.

 

 

1. One thing I noticed with GTA 5's map is that... it's definitely weird. Like GTA 4's map, GTA 5's map is presented as being perfectly flat and symmetrical... in reality New York City is not perfectly flat and symmetrical, I think it's depicted as such purely for gameplay reasons.

 

If you put the GTA 5 map over the real-life area of LA County as perfectly flat, you will notice this; the coast does not line up well with real-life California at all, hence I rotated it; Paleto Bay still is by the coast (I messed up a bit here, but still), so it feels more true to California's coast. Also, I was able to put an Orange County right next to the Palomino Highlands.

 

2. I made sure to have Majestic County adjacent to the Alamo Sea; again, Rockstar really took a lot of liberties here, and from my rotation, the Alamo Sea is way more north than it is compared to the Salton Sea. I personally don't like the way they've done Los Santos/Blaine County the more that I think about it, but it is what it is. In the GTA Universe, the Alamo Sea is pretty much directly north of Los Santos, and nowhere near San Dario. I've made Majestic be based on San Bernardino County.

 

3. I still used WD2's map as scaling for San Fierro and got a rough scale; I added a few other areas missing in that map. San Fierro should more or less be as big as Los Santos, as real life SF is quite dense. Corcoya County has Oakland/Berkeley/etc, should be relative to San Fierro. I've added San Jorge, which makes up much of San Ferrer County and is based on San Jose/Santa Clara County.

 

4. Sacramento is included as Santamento, it should be a bit smaller than San Fierro and much less dense.

 

5. As I said before, the Nevada portion of the map is more consistent with what we saw on "Venturas Poker Challenge".

 

6. Really, mapping out the entire state of San Andreas in the HD Universe is anyone's guess. 

 

Edited August 4, 2021 by CynicalMexican

[BloxedRetro]

On 8/4/2021 at 6:14 AM, CynicalMexican said:

All right guys.

 

I re-did the map again, since I wasn't too satisfied with the work I made last time. This map is a bit more refined, with more properly defined borders, more counties, named settlements, and a bit better scaling. This time, I also wanted to re-make the Nevada counties and have them be more in-line with the ones we saw on the poker program in GTA 4, since that's the only part of the San Andreas map we see in the HD Universe aside from Los Santos/Blaine County, of course.

 

 

1. One thing I noticed with GTA 5's map is that... it's definitely weird. Like GTA 4's map, GTA 5's map is presented as being perfectly flat and symmetrical... in reality New York City is not perfectly flat and symmetrical, I think it's depicted as such purely for gameplay reasons.

 

If you put the GTA 5 map over the real-life area of LA County as perfectly flat, you will notice this; the coast does not line up well with real-life California at all, hence I rotated it; Paleto Bay still is by the coast (I messed up a bit here, but still), so it feels more true to California's coast. Also, I was able to put an Orange County right next to the Palomino Highlands.

 

2. I made sure to have Majestic County adjacent to the Alamo Sea; again, Rockstar really took a lot of liberties here, and from my rotation, the Alamo Sea is way more north than it is compared to the Salton Sea. I personally don't like the way they've done Los Santos/Blaine County the more that I think about it, but it is what it is. In the GTA Universe, the Alamo Sea is pretty much directly north of Los Santos, and nowhere near San Dario. I've made Majestic be based on San Bernardino County.

 

3. I still used WD2's map as scaling for San Fierro and got a rough scale; I added a few other areas missing in that map. San Fierro should more or less be as big as Los Santos, as real life SF is quite dense. Corcoya County has Oakland/Berkeley/etc, should be relative to San Fierro. I've added San Jorge, which makes up much of San Ferrer County and is based on San Jose/Santa Clara County.

 

4. Sacramento is included as Santamento, it should be a bit smaller than San Fierro and much less dense.

 

5. As I said before, the Nevada portion of the map is more consistent with what we saw on "Venturas Poker Challenge".

 

6. Really, mapping out the entire state of San Andreas in the HD Universe is anyone's guess. 

 

I like this map. I don't want to sound nitpicky though, but the map contradicts the normal orientation of the Los Santos area. I don't blame you though for doing it since it is more accurate to real like geography.

 

One thing I love about this map is how it finds a way of making Los Santos not appearing as if it is the entire southern San Andreas area, so then it means that maps for future GTAs aren't restricted in Size as much as GTA V may make it out to be. Honestly, great map, one of the best HD San Andreas concepts I've seen.

Edited January 29, 2022 by BloxedRetro
Added another point about the map.

[gtafaninwest]

I'd always assume Los Santos County has more area than what it portrayed in-game.

[BloxedRetro]

On 1/30/2022 at 3:03 AM, gtafaninwest said:

I'd always assume Los Santos County has more area than what it portrayed in-game.

That'd more likely be Blaine County imo. City-Based Counties don't often have the largest area, and Los Angeles County irl isn't too big.

[firetruck123]

On 8/4/2021 at 6:14 AM, CynicalMexican said:

All right guys.

 

I re-did the map again, since I wasn't too satisfied with the work I made last time. This map is a bit more refined, with more properly defined borders, more counties, named settlements, and a bit better scaling. This time, I also wanted to re-make the Nevada counties and have them be more in-line with the ones we saw on the poker program in GTA 4, since that's the only part of the San Andreas map we see in the HD Universe aside from Los Santos/Blaine County, of course.

 

 

1. One thing I noticed with GTA 5's map is that... it's definitely weird. Like GTA 4's map, GTA 5's map is presented as being perfectly flat and symmetrical... in reality New York City is not perfectly flat and symmetrical, I think it's depicted as such purely for gameplay reasons.

 

If you put the GTA 5 map over the real-life area of LA County as perfectly flat, you will notice this; the coast does not line up well with real-life California at all, hence I rotated it; Paleto Bay still is by the coast (I messed up a bit here, but still), so it feels more true to California's coast. Also, I was able to put an Orange County right next to the Palomino Highlands.

 

2. I made sure to have Majestic County adjacent to the Alamo Sea; again, Rockstar really took a lot of liberties here, and from my rotation, the Alamo Sea is way more north than it is compared to the Salton Sea. I personally don't like the way they've done Los Santos/Blaine County the more that I think about it, but it is what it is. In the GTA Universe, the Alamo Sea is pretty much directly north of Los Santos, and nowhere near San Dario. I've made Majestic be based on San Bernardino County.

 

3. I still used WD2's map as scaling for San Fierro and got a rough scale; I added a few other areas missing in that map. San Fierro should more or less be as big as Los Santos, as real life SF is quite dense. Corcoya County has Oakland/Berkeley/etc, should be relative to San Fierro. I've added San Jorge, which makes up much of San Ferrer County and is based on San Jose/Santa Clara County.

 

4. Sacramento is included as Santamento, it should be a bit smaller than San Fierro and much less dense.

 

5. As I said before, the Nevada portion of the map is more consistent with what we saw on "Venturas Poker Challenge".

 

6. Really, mapping out the entire state of San Andreas in the HD Universe is anyone's guess. 

 

I know I'm late but Nevada has its own state. It was referenced in the Venturas Poker Challenge and this is realistic considering its in the HD Universe. Just take this concept map for an example which I made