Sandy Shores, Paleto Bay, Mount Chiliad, the Alamo Sea — Blaine County is GTA V's rural backlands and one of Rockstar's most-detailed open-world regions.
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GTA V splits its map between Los Santos (the Los Angeles analog) and Blaine County (the surrounding California rural region). Blaine County is the bigger half by land area and contains some of GTA V's most-detailed open-world content — Sandy Shores, Paleto Bay, Mount Chiliad, the Alamo Sea, the Grand Senora Desert, and the Vinewood Hills's eastern fringe.
Below: the district-by-district tour, what to do in each, and the rural-half story arc.
Trevor Philips's home turf. Sandy Shores sits on the southern shore of the Alamo Sea — a desert town built around the dried-out lakebed. Modelled on Salton Sea, California specifically: the same hot, dusty, faded-resort-town feel.
What's here:
The Sandy Shores story arc dominates Trevor's introduction in the second-act campaign. Several of GTA V's most-quoted Trevor scenes happen here.
The northern coastal town. Paleto Bay is GTA V's "Pacific Northwest" analog — overcast, foggy, with a pier and small-town infrastructure. The setting of the Paleto Score heist.
What's here:
Paleto Bay is the most-polished mid-size town in GTA V — every building has interior detail, every NPC has scripted behavior.
The mountain in the northwest of the map. The most-famous single landmark in GTA V because of the Mount Chiliad Mystery — the never-fully-solved puzzle that V-era players spent years trying to decode.
What's here:
The Mount Chiliad mystery is one of the longest-running unanswered Rockstar puzzles. Multiple intentionally-placed clues (the egg, the UFO, the mural) appear throughout Blaine County. Whether they "solve" anything has never been confirmed.
The dried-out lakebed. Surrounded by Sandy Shores on the south, Mount Chiliad to the west, the Grapeseed agricultural area to the east. The Alamo Sea contains the underwater shipwreck that's central to several Strangers and Freaks side missions.
The Alamo Sea is the most boating-oriented part of GTA V's map — multiple Random Events involve boating, fishing, or aquatic stunts.
The southern desert between Los Santos and Blaine County. Gas stations, diners, the Sandy Shores Sheriff's Office border, and Stab City — an outlaw biker compound that's the setting of several Trevor missions.
What's here:
The desert is the most-cinematic single biome in GTA V — large open vistas, long sightlines, dramatic lighting. Several of GTA V's marketing screenshots are taken here.
The mountain residential area extends into Blaine County's southwestern edge. Several of the Vinewood mansions sit at high altitude with views over both Los Santos and Blaine County.
What's here:
The Hills are a hybrid of LS and Blaine County — visually closer to LS's Hollywood Hills inspiration but geographically inside the rural half.
A few notable Blaine County details:
GTA V's Blaine County is the direct ancestor of:
For the interactive map, see the GTA V map. For the broader Mount Chiliad mystery context, see Mount Chiliad and the Rural Easter Eggs of San Andreas.
