Los Santos Across Eras: San Andreas (2004) vs GTA V

Los Santos in San Andreas and GTA V: its Los Angeles roots as Rockstar and major outlets describe them, district matches, and what changed.

Los Santos is Grand Theft Auto's Los Angeles. It has been the home city of two of the series' biggest games: San Andreas in 2004 and GTA V in 2013. The two versions share a name, a state and a real-world model, but they are different cities with different jobs. In 2004 Los Santos was CJ's home turf and the starting city of three, mapped by gang territory. In 2013 it was the whole show, a city Rockstar described through celebrity and money. This page sets out what each version is said to be based on, by whom, and which districts line up with which real places.

At a glance

Item	San Andreas (2004)	GTA V (2013)
First release	PS2, Oct 25 2004 (North America)	Xbox 360 and PS3, Sep 17 2013
Era in game	Early 1990s	Present day
Role in the map	One of three cities in the state of San Andreas	The only city, with Blaine County
Real-world analogue	Los Angeles ("to all intents and purposes, LA")	Los Angeles; Rockstar says "present-day Southern California"
Protagonists	Carl Johnson	Michael, Franklin, Trevor
Sources	Take-Two; GamesRadar+; Rockstar Steam copy	Take-Two; Edge; Rockstar Steam copy

What is counted, and how

We separate three kinds of claim. Rockstar's own words come from Take-Two press releases and Rockstar's store copy. Real-world matches come from major outlets: GamesRadar+ and Edge, the magazine whose features GamesRadar+ republishes. Anything else is labeled as our observation.

District names for 2004 come from Rockstar's pre-release gang information as reported by GamesRadar+ in October 2004. Some pre-release names may differ from the shipped game; the preview, for example, calls CJ's gang the Orange Grove Families. We did not confirm the shipped names against a primary source, so we use them only as the preview reported them.

We leave out map area as a fact. Edge gave GTA V's map as 49 square miles in 2015. GamesRadar+ gave 29.28 square miles in 2023. The difference is 19.72 square miles, and Rockstar has published no figure in the sources we opened. The comparison is at San Andreas.

The gap between the two releases is 3,249 days: Oct 25 2004 to Sep 17 2013, or 8 years, 10 months and 23 days.

Los Santos in 2004: a city of turf

Rockstar's copy for San Andreas opens with CJ, who left Los Santos five years earlier and comes back in the early 90s after his mother is murdered. It calls Los Santos a city "tearing itself apart with gang trouble, drugs and corruption". See GTA San Andreas and Carl Johnson.

GamesRadar+ said in May 2004 that Los Santos was "to all intents and purposes, LA". In October 2004 it relayed Rockstar's pre-release rundown of the rival street gangs that drive the story, which it said were "based on the west coast mobsters of the '90s". The game treats that conflict as the backdrop to a family drama: CJ comes home to find his old neighborhood's crew weakened and divided. The rundown matters for this page because it is the one source we found that ties named districts to the story's factions.

District (preview name)	Faction the preview places there
Jefferson	Front Yard Ballas
Glen Park, spreading into Idlewood	Rollin Heights Ballas
Las Colinas and Los Flores	Los Santos Vagos
East Los Santos	Contested; it sits between the Orange Grove Families' and the Ballas' areas
Little Mexico, in the south	Varrios Los Aztecas
The south-east beach area	Seville Blvd Families
The northern part of the city	Temple Drive Families, allies of CJ

In 2007 a GamesRadar+ writer said 2004 Los Santos alone was "probably the size of Vice City".

Our observation: 2004 Los Santos is described almost entirely through gangs. Its places matter because someone holds them.

Los Santos in 2013: a city of fame and money

Rockstar's Nov 3, 2011 announcement sent GTA V to "the city of Los Santos and surrounding hills, countryside and beaches", in "a re-imagined, present-day Southern California". The January 2013 release-date announcement described Los Santos as a "sprawling sun-soaked metropolis" full of self-help gurus, starlets and fading celebrities. See GTA V and Michael, Franklin and Trevor.

Edge called Los Santos "the sun-baked fictional analogue to Los Angeles", and said it had the leading role in both 2004's San Andreas and GTA V. It wrote that the team "reportedly" conducted more than a hundred days of research in Los Angeles, with thousands of photographs. Edge also quoted art director Aaron Garbut on the city's defining trait: "it's the sun that gets you first." GamesRadar+ wrote in 2023 that the map was "designed this time to mirror real-life Los Angeles". PC Gamer contrasted it with GTA IV, saying Los Santos almost always looks bright and vivid.

The GTA V map is more than the city. Edge traced it from Los Santos International Airport in the south, through a central district bordered by the Del Perro and La Puerta freeways and the Los Santos river, up through the Tongva Valley and the San Chianski Mountains to Blaine County.

Which district is which real place

This table is ours. It collects the 2013 district matches that Edge and GamesRadar+ made. We list only matches an outlet stated.

GTA V name	Real-world counterpart	Who said so
Los Santos	Los Angeles	Edge (2015); GamesRadar+ (2023)
Vinewood (and its sign)	Hollywood (and its sign)	Edge; GamesRadar+
Rockford Hills	Beverly Hills	Edge
Richman	Bel Air	Edge
Pillbox Hill	Bunker Hill	Edge
Mission Row	Skid Row	Edge
Davis	Compton	Edge
Del Perro Pier	Santa Monica Pier ("a lovingly rendered homage")	Edge

Edge's verdict on the whole: not an exact recreation of Los Angeles, but "a perfected recreation", with the sprawl tightened.

For 2004, our sources give the city-level match (Los Santos is LA, per GamesRadar+ and Edge) but no district-by-district matches. We did not fill that gap with fan claims or our own guesses.

What changed between the two versions

This table is also ours, built from the sources above.

Feature	2004	2013
How Rockstar frames the city	"gang trouble, drugs and corruption"	"self-help gurus, starlets and fading celebrities"
Who the hero is	A returning son, pulled into turf wars	Three criminals planning heists
What surrounds it	Countryside, then two other cities	Hills, beaches, mountains, Blaine County
Named districts in our sources	Idlewood, Jefferson, Glen Park, Las Colinas, Los Flores, East Los Santos, Little Mexico	Vinewood, Rockford Hills, Richman, Pillbox Hill, Mission Row, Davis, Del Perro Pier
Size, as described	About the size of Vice City (GamesRadar+, 2007)	Not published by Rockstar; outlets disagree
Online play	None	GTA Online

The name list is the clearest change. None of the 2004 districts in our sources appear in our 2013 sources, and the reverse is true too. That does not prove no names carried over. It shows the outlets described each city through different places: neighborhoods and turf in 2004, landmarks and wealth in 2013.

Trivia

Edge noted that "Santos" means "Saints" in Spanish, a play on the "Angels" of Los Angeles.
GamesRadar+'s 2014 review of the PS4 version praised "the sun-bleached sprawl of Los Santos".
The PC version of GTA V came out on Apr 14, 2015 (Take-Two 10-K, 2016), about 19 months after the console launch (Sep 17 2013 to Apr 14 2015 is 574 days). Steam lists it a day earlier, Apr 13.
GTA VI's confirmed setting is Vice City in the state of Leonida (FACTS.md F43). Rockstar has not announced Los Santos as a GTA VI location. For the series' other cities, see Vice City and Liberty City.