How big is Night City?

TL;DR: The area covered by the Night City sourcebook is 1.9 × 1.2 km (1.2 × 0.75 mi). The area described in the core rulebook is 1.9 × 2.3 km (1.2×1.42 mi), and the amalgamated map is approximately 6 × 6 km (3.7 × 3.7 mi).

Yes, we know that in 2020 NC has a population of five million people. But what interests me more is its physical size. This is important if, for some reason, I need to know how long it takes to get from point A to point B. It’s part of narrative tension to put your players in a time crunch: you can solve the plot, but you have to take risks. There will be loose ends; you won’t be able to secure every clue, follow every lead, or prepare every encounter as thoroughly as you’d like. Forcing players to prioritize is one of the fine arts of good game mastering. A certain level of calculated risk adds excitement to the session, more mystery, and therefore, greater enjoyment.

The problem is that none of the Night City maps include a scale. This is not an oversight; it’s intentional. That vagueness allows you creative freedom and, at the same time, keeps the door open for future developments. Moreover, the canon has three significantly different versions: 2020, 2045, and 2077. I focus on 2020 because it's the one I know best and the one I use in my games. (What I’ve seen of 2013 is very similar to 2020, so I consider it part of the 2020 canon.)

Here we'll be talking about the Night City amalgamated map, a fan-made add-on from Derick Bernier that expands the city using realworld satellite imagery. Find it here.

2020

I’ve tried several approaches based on the width of typical U.S. city blocks, street and highway widths. I’ve also counted pixels in satellite images of the amalgamated map, assumed they were cars, and multiplied by the average size of an American car. The results are so inconsistent that I can't rely on them.

I also took this Reddit post where Mike Pondsmith explained his design process and included a sketch comparing reality with the game’s layout. The real-world reference is an elongated isthmus that encloses the bay. That isthmus is 6 kilometers long. According to canon and common knowledge, Night City was built by reclaiming land, dredging the bay, and generally reshaping the coastline. If we overlay the sketch from the official Night City 2020 sourcebook onto Pondsmith’s outline, we see that the peninsula formed by downtown and South Night City has a major semi-axis of 3.7 kilometers (2.3 miles). That’s without counting Rancho Coronado, Pacifica, North Oak, or Westbrook—basically, anything beyond the water.

Comparing the isthmus with the size of the city, the area covered in the sourcebook is about 750 × 600 meters. My hometown is bigger than that, so those dimensions don't work for me. It doesn't have the epic scale of a metropolis.

That’s why I looked for a more reasonable measurement, one that’s easier to grasp when playing. I decided to measure its size in football fields. If you look at the NC map, McCartney Stadium is clearly visible as a circular structure framed within a larger rectangular complex. McCartney Stadium has 75,000 seats and hosts baseball, American football, basketball, and combat football. Of those four sports, the largest field is baseball (120 meters long). I assumed the football field fits within the baseball diamond and that the basketball court is in an annex. Then I compared it to other stadiums with 75,000 seats. The result is a diameter of approximately 200 meters (technically 209, but 200 is a rounder, more practical number). The stadium has other areas, but I focused exclusively on the circular grandstand surrounding the field.

If I draw a diameter line across the stadium and copy it horizontally and vertically, we see that downtown Night City spans nearly 1.9 km (1.2 mi) east to west and a bit more than 2.1 km (1.3 mi) north to south. The area extends from 1st Street to 33rd Street and from the University District to Charter Hill. This corresponds to the map in the 2020 core rulebook. If you limit yourself to the area detailed in the Night City sourcebook, which only reaches 28th Street in the south, the dimensions are 1.9 × 1.2 km (1.2 × 0.75 mi).

For the amalgamated map, the approximate dimensions are 6 × 6 km (3.7 × 3.7 mi), and you can consider that on this map, 1 pixel = 1 meter. This measurement is obtained simply by overlaying the area of NC (from 1st Street to 33rd Street) onto the amalgamated map. As a reference, the central area enclosed by the M30 ring road in Madrid is about 6 km wide, with a major semi-axis of approximately 9 km.

Eric Bergbauer’s map, a detailed hand-drawn sketch of NC with annotations in French, gives a size of 3 × 3.4 km, about 30% larger than my estimate.

This approach downplays the map of NC’s suburbs (Pacifica, Rancho Coronado, Heywood, etc.). When faced with two conflicting factors, the only option is to disregard one, as it will never be possible to fully reconcile them. However, the suburban map is highly schematic and abstract, mainly used for broad spatial relations, so I’m not too concerned if the fit isn't perfect. The NC map, on the other hand, spends more time on the table, contains countless details, and features the stadium as one of the most recognizable and easily locatable structures due to its shape and position. I found it important that this reference remains accessible to players and easy to grasp.

The calculation of the suburbs will be covered in a second part. Sooner or later, in a session, someone will ask, «How far is Pacifica from...?» I should have an easy way to estimate that, right?

Notes:

1. As an example, the Rose Bowl Stadium in Pasadena has 90,000 seats and a major semi-axis of 290 meters. The Spartan Stadium, with 75,000 seats, has a diameter of approximately 230 meters. The Night City stadium is larger, as the 200-meter circumference fits within a 390 × 240-meter rectangle. I assume that this rectangle includes auxiliary facilities, the basketball court, etc. The 200-meter figure is arbitrary within reasonable margins. I find it useful that it’s a round number, easy to memorize and work with.
2. The "official" NC map included in the amalgamated map is the one from the German edition of the 2020 core rulebook, featuring that cool photorealistic finish.
3. As a reference, Manhattan measures approximately 21 × 3.7 km (13×2.3 mi). As of 2025, 4 million people are working within this area. (The actual population in Manhattan is 1.6 million people but, due to population dynamics, seems appropiate to talk about that floating population at daylight time).