Seven Mile Bridge vs Keys Causeway

The Seven Mile Bridge is the most photographed stretch of the Overseas Highway, the road that carries US 1 from the mainland down to Key West. It runs for close to seven miles between Marathon and Little Duck Key, and it opened in 1982 beside the older Flagler railroad bridge it replaced, which still stands alongside it in pieces.

Rockstar's aerial shot of the Leonida Keys shows the same idea from the air: a thin concrete road laid across bright shallow water, linking a chain of low, green islands. The colour of the water, the sandbars and the mangrove fringes are close enough that the photo above could almost be a reference frame.

The big difference is distance. In Leonida, Vice City's skyline sits on the horizon behind the causeway, while the real Seven Mile Bridge is more than a hundred miles from Miami. Rockstar has squeezed the Keys up against the city, which is what you would expect from a map built for driving rather than for a road trip.