Nevada (NV) Fast Facts

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Location and Geography: The state of Nevada is found in the western part of the United States, located between California and the so-called “Four Corners” of Utah, Colorado, New Mexico, and Arizona. Nevada is a very dry state, and its land area is largely made up of desert. Nevada is the largest U.S. state that is bordered only by other states.

Counties and Regions: Nevada has only seventeen counties, which are listed below:

• Carson City

• Churchill

• Clark

• Douglas

• Elko

• Esmeralda

• Eureka

• Humboldt

• Lander

• Lincoln

• Lyon

• Mineral

• Nye

• Pershing

• Storey

• Washoe

• White Pine

Nevada also has six generally recognized geographical regions:

• Black Rock Desert

• Lake Tahoe

• Las Vegas Valley

• Mojave Desert

• Pahranagat Valley

• Sierra Nevada (mountains)

Population: Nevada has a little more than two million, seven hundred thousand citizens, most of them living in or around the city of Las Vegas. More than eighty percent of the state’s land is uninhabited and owned by the U.S. government.

Major Cities: Las Vegas is without a doubt Nevada’s most important city, and has quite a colorful history of its own. It is well known throughout the United States (and the world) for being a primary tourist spot. Most of the other towns in Nevada with large populations are within the metropolitan area of Las Vegas. The other main population center is the city of Reno, in Washoe County.

Story Behind the Name: Nevada is named for the Sierra Nevada mountain range, which sits along its western edge and divides it from the state of California. The name “Sierra Nevada” means “snow-covered mountains” in Spanish.

History and Colonization: Like many of the western states, Nevada was first colonized by the Spanish. Local Native Americans blended with the Spanish colonists to a much greater degree than the natives and the European colonists of the East Coast ever did, but their culture was still slowly marginalized. The United States would end up gaining control of the land, then part of the territory of Utah, through the 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo that ended the Mexican-American War.

The first Americans to set up towns in distant Nevada were Christian missionaries and Mormon followers from what is now the state of Utah. These two groups did not always get along, but they laid the foundation for a more modern government in the territory. In 1859, the discovery of silver lodes led to a mining boom in the territory, and it was broken off from Utah and made into a separate territory a short time later. Nevada was admitted as a state in 1864, with the usual requirements greatly relaxed so that it could become a state in time to aid the reelection of Abraham Lincoln.

Nevada in the 19th century came to be symbolic of the lawless West, with its population fluctuating greatly as mining and prospecting booms came and went. The Progressive movement of the late 19th century attempted to “civilize” the state by passing bans on gambling and other behaviors that were considered to be vices, but many of these were re-legalized during the Great Depression in order to give a lift to Nevada’s economy. The state’s relaxed laws, and the founding of destination cities such as Las Vegas, encouraged Nevada’s burgeoning pleasure-based tourism industry.

Today, Nevada is still mostly known for its gaming casinos, nightclubs, and tourist attractions. The ranching and mining industries are still modestly successful, but the vast majority of Nevada’s economy centers around service and entertainment. Most of Nevada’s citizens are concentrated in cities found near a water source–the rest of the state’s land is not useful for agriculture or other pursuits (although the U.S. government, which owns most of it, has frequently used it for weapons testing). The Las Vegas metropolitan area contains a huge majority of the state’s population.

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