Liberty City

Updated 28 October 2026 · Fan site. Not affiliated with Rockstar Games or Take-Two Interactive.

Liberty City is the Grand Theft Auto series' fictional version of New York City. It first appeared in the original Grand Theft Auto in 1997, was rebuilt in 3D for GTA III in 2001, and was rebuilt again for GTA IV in 2008.

What is Liberty City based on?

Liberty City is modelled on New York City. How closely it follows the real place depends on the game. The 1997 city and the 2008 city stick fairly close to New York. The 2001 city in GTA III was much looser. Dan Houser described it as a hybrid of a generic American city, and the team mixed in ideas from Chicago, Pittsburgh, Detroit and Philadelphia, according to Wikipedia. Later games set in that same 3D city leaned harder on New York.

Liberty City in the 2D era (1997)

The city made its debut in the top-down Grand Theft Auto, released on 28 November 1997 in Europe. It was the first of the game's three cities and the one every player starts in. San Andreas and Vice City unlock after it. The story opens with jobs for the Seragliano gang.

The 1997 map has a large landmass in the southeast, a smaller one in the northeast, a central Manhattan-style island and two little river islands. A parody of New Jersey called New Guernsey sits in the northwest. The game's old official site, quoted on GTA Wiki, named areas such as Island City, Kings, Estoria and The Brix.

Liberty City in the 3D era (2001 to 2005)

Grand Theft Auto III came out on 23 October 2001 in North America and rebuilt the city in full 3D for the PlayStation 2. The map is three islands. Players start in industrial Portland, then unlock Staunton Island, the commercial centre, and finally Shoreside Vale, the suburbs. The designers wanted players to start out poor and move up in the world as the islands opened. The protagonist is Claude.

The September 2001 attacks led to small changes before release. Police cars lost their NYPD-style blue and white for a black and white scheme, and a plane's flight path was moved so it no longer looked like it was flying into a tower. Rockstar said the game ended up about 1% different.

The same 3D city came back twice. Grand Theft Auto Advance (2004) shows it around 2000 on the Game Boy Advance. Liberty City Stories (25 October 2005, PSP) is set in 1998 and follows Toni Cipriani. In that year the Callahan Bridge is still unfinished, so a ferry links Portland and Staunton Island, and Fort Staunton is still a Little Italy neighbourhood. The city also turns up in San Andreas, where one mission takes Carl Johnson there.

Liberty City in the HD era (2008 to 2009)

Grand Theft Auto IV launched on 29 April 2008 with a new Liberty City built from scratch. It has four boroughs that mirror real ones: Broker (Brooklyn), Dukes (Queens), Bohan (the Bronx) and Algonquin (Manhattan). Smaller islands include Charge Island, Colony Island and Happiness Island, home of the city's Statue of Liberty parody. West of Algonquin lies Alderney, a separate state based on New Jersey.

The map is roughly three times the size of GTA III's. It is smaller than San Andreas, but the developers felt its height, building count and detail made up for that. At the start, Niko Bellic can only explore Broker, Dukes and Bohan. A terror alert keeps the bridges closed, and crossing early brings the police.

Research was heavy. About 60 to 70 Rockstar North staff visited New York in 2005, and a full-time team stayed in the city for follow-up questions. The two expansions, The Lost and Damned with Johnny Klebitz and The Ballad of Gay Tony with Luis Lopez, reuse the same map in 2008. Chinatown Wars (17 March 2009, Nintendo DS) uses a scaled-down version without Alderney and stars Huang Lee.

Is Liberty City in GTA V or GTA Online?

Not as a place you can visit. GTA V and GTA Online stay in Los Santos and Blaine County. Liberty City only shows up in backstories, such as characters who say they came from there.