Places

San Andreas is the fictional U.S. state that serves as the entire setting of Grand Theft Auto V. Modelled loosely on Southern California, it spans roughly 49 square miles of explorable terrain — the largest open world Rockstar had built at the time of release and still one of the most densely detailed in the medium.

The state divides into two main halves. Los Santos — a parody of Los Angeles — fills the southern third with its 44 named neighborhoods, ranging from the gleaming Rockford Hills mansions to the working-class Strawberry blocks, from the Vinewood tourist strip to the LSIA runways. North of the city lies Blaine County, a sun-bleached desert region of small towns like Sandy Shores and Paleto Bay, the Alamo Sea, the forested Mount Chiliad State Wilderness, and the heavily-guarded Fort Zancudo military base.

The map's geographic centerpiece is Mount Chiliad — the 2,619-foot peak that dominates the northern skyline and houses the infamous Chiliad Mystery mural. Other iconic landmarks include the Maze Bank Tower (the tallest building in the state), the Galileo Observatory overlooking the city, and the Del Perro Pier with its working Ferris wheel.

The three protagonists each live in a different corner of the map: Michael in his Rockford Hills mansion, Franklin initially in his aunt's Strawberry house and later in a Vinewood Hills mansion gifted by Lester, and Trevor in his Sandy Shores trailer. The geographic spread reinforces the story's class-and-culture contrast — old money in the hills, poverty in the south of the city, and meth-lab anarchy out in the desert.