GTA 4 Map: Liberty City Borough by Borough
The GTA 4 map is Liberty City, Rockstar’s version of New York, as it looked when Grand Theft Auto IV came out on April 29, 2008. It has four boroughs, Broker (Brooklyn), Dukes (Queens), Bohan (the Bronx) and Algonquin (Manhattan), plus the neighbouring state of Alderney, the game’s New Jersey. Staten Island is the one New York borough missing: it was cut during development. Unlike the Liberty City of the PlayStation 2 era, this one is made entirely of islands. We are building a 3D map of Liberty City on the same engine as our GTA 5 map.
The boroughs at a glance
| Borough | Real-world model | What it is like | Places to know |
|---|---|---|---|
| Broker | Brooklyn | Where Niko Bellic arrives: brownstones, housing projects, a busy downtown | Hove Beach, Firefly Island, BOABO, Downtown Broker, Outlook Park |
| Dukes | Queens | Mostly residential, diverse, home to the airport | Francis International Airport, Steinway, Meadows Park, East Island City |
| Bohan | The Bronx | The smallest island, run-down projects | South Bohan, Chase Point, Fortside, Northern Gardens |
| Algonquin | Manhattan | Skyscrapers and the heart of the city | Star Junction, Middle Park, the Rotterdam Tower, Chinatown, The Exchange |
| Alderney | New Jersey (a separate state) | Industrial wasteland meets suburbs | Alderney City, Westdyke, Leftwood, Berchem, Acter, Port Tudor |
Broker
Broker is where the story starts. Niko and his cousin Roman live in Hove Beach, the game’s Brighton Beach, with its Russian community and the gangsters that come with it. South of it, Firefly Island is Coney Island, with its boardwalk and an amusement park closed for the season. BOABO is DUMBO, under the bridges, and Downtown Broker is the borough’s business district, next to Outlook Park, the game’s Prospect Park. The east of the borough, Schottler, the Firefly Projects and Beechwood City, is rougher. Broker shares its island with Dukes, the only two boroughs that do.
Dukes
Dukes is mostly residential, with Irish, Victorian and Tudor-style streets. It holds Francis International Airport, a blend of JFK and LaGuardia, the baseball stadium of the Liberty City Swingers, and neighbourhoods modelled on Queens: Steinway (Astoria), Meadows Park (Flushing), Meadow Hills (Forest Hills), East Island City (Long Island City) and Willis (Jamaica). Charge Island, the industrial island under the East Borough Bridge, is officially part of Dukes.
Bohan
Bohan is the smallest of the islands and the one with the worst reputation. Its neighbourhoods follow the Bronx: South Bohan, Chase Point (Hunts Point), Fortside (Fordham and Tremont), Little Bay and Northern Gardens (Co-op City). After the mission Roman’s Sorrow, Niko and Roman lose everything in Broker and move into a safehouse in South Bohan, which is where the story opens up to the rest of the city.
Algonquin
Algonquin is Manhattan, compressed. Uptown runs from Northwood and North Holland (Harlem) down to Middle Park, the game’s Central Park. Midtown has Star Junction, the game’s Times Square and, according to GTA Wiki, one of the districts closest to its real model, and the Rotterdam Tower, the Empire State Building. Downtown has Chinatown, Little Italy, Suffolk (SoHo) and The Exchange, the financial district.
Two islands belong to Algonquin. Happiness Island, the game’s Liberty Island, carries the Statue of Happiness, and it is where the final mission of GTA IV plays out. Colony Island, the game’s Roosevelt Island, has a cemetery, a lighthouse and the abandoned hospital of the mission The Snow Storm.
Alderney
Alderney is not part of Liberty City at all on paper: it is a separate state, standing in for New Jersey. Alderney City borrows from Newark and Jersey City, Berchem from Hoboken, Westdyke and Leftwood from towns further north, and Tudor and Port Tudor from Elizabeth and its container port. It also holds the Acter Nuclear Power Plant and the Alderney State Correctional Facility. Two crossings link it to Algonquin: the Booth Tunnel, the game’s Lincoln Tunnel, and the Hickey Bridge.
The locked bridges
You cannot drive everywhere from the start. When Niko arrives, the bridges are closed by a terror alert, with police parked on them. Cross anyway and you get an instant six-star wanted level.
- Algonquin opens after the mission Blow Your Cover.
- The full map, Alderney included, opens after Three Leaf Clover, the bank robbery with the McReary brothers.
The main crossings are the Broker Bridge (the Brooklyn Bridge), the Algonquin Bridge (the Manhattan Bridge) and the East Borough Bridge, a copy of the Triborough complex that crosses Charge Island. GTA IV is the last game in the series so far to lock parts of its map behind story progress. If you would rather ignore the rules altogether, our GTA 4 cheats guide lists the phone codes.
How big is Liberty City?
Rockstar never gave GTA IV’s map an area. GTA Wiki sums up the trade-off: the whole map is smaller than GTA San Andreas, but far more detailed, with the city squeezed so that landmarks sit closer together than they do in New York.
A widely shared fan measurement puts the total area at around 16 square kilometres (about 6.2 square miles), against about 38 km² for San Andreas and about 76 km² for GTA 5. Treat those as estimates. Measured on the calibrated coastline behind our 3D map of Liberty City, the land alone covers about 8.4 km²: Broker and Dukes 2.6, Alderney 2.4, Algonquin 2.3, Bohan 0.8 and the small islands about 0.3. What the estimates do show is that Los Santos and Blaine County together are several times the size of Liberty City. Our GTA 5 map guide covers that map region by region.
Episodes from Liberty City
GTA IV got two expansions, both set on the same map, in 2008, and both first released on Xbox 360:
| Episode | Released | Protagonist |
|---|---|---|
| The Lost and Damned | February 17, 2009 | Johnny Klebitz, biker with The Lost MC in Alderney |
| The Ballad of Gay Tony | October 29, 2009 | Luis Fernando Lopez, bodyguard to nightclub owner Tony Prince |
Both came out together on disc as Episodes from Liberty City on October 29, 2009, then on PlayStation 3 and PC in April 2010. Because their stories start midway through Niko’s, all the islands are open from the beginning. The Ballad of Gay Tony even opens during the events of Three Leaf Clover.
Liberty City after GTA IV
The same Liberty City returned in GTA Chinatown Wars in 2009, without Alderney. It never came back as a playable map after that: in GTA 5, the city only appears in TV shows and films, such as the in-game movie Meltdown.
Frequently asked questions
What city is the GTA 4 map based on?
New York City. Liberty City's four boroughs are Broker (Brooklyn), Dukes (Queens), Bohan (the Bronx) and Algonquin (Manhattan), and the neighbouring state of Alderney stands in for New Jersey. Staten Island was cut during development.
How do you unlock all the islands in GTA 4?
Through the story. The bridges are closed by a terror alert at the start, and crossing them gives you a six-star wanted level. Algonquin opens after the mission Blow Your Cover, and the whole map, Alderney included, after Three Leaf Clover.
How big is the GTA 4 map?
Rockstar never published a size. It is smaller than GTA San Andreas but far denser. A widely shared fan measurement puts the total area at around 16 square kilometres (about 6.2 square miles).
Is Alderney part of Liberty City?
Not officially. Alderney is a separate state, the game's New Jersey, but Alderney City and its surrounding towns belong to the Liberty City metropolitan area, and the map treats it as the fifth area of the city.