Las Vegas , officially the City of Las Vegas and often known simply as Vegas, is the 28th-most populated city in the United States, the most populated city in the state of Nevada, and the county seat of Clark County. The city anchors the Las Vegas Valley metropolitan area and is the largest city within the greater Mojave Desert.

Las Vegas, city, seat of Clark county, southeastern Nevada, U.S. The only major city in the American West to have been founded in the 20th century, Las Vegas grew from a tiny, desert-bound railroad service centre at the outset of the 20th century to the country’s fastest-growing metropolis at century’s end. This transformation—made possible by a combination of shrewd entrepreneurship, access to water, an extensive transportation network, and permissive state laws—has created the city now often known simply as «Vegas,» a place of vast casinos, elaborate hotels, and spectacular entertainment venues that attracts masses of visitors from throughout the world.

The Las Vegas Valley as a whole serves as the leading financial, commercial, and cultural center for Nevada.

The city bills itself as The Entertainment Capital of the World, and is famous for its mega casino-hotels and associated activities. It is a top three destination in the United States for business conventions and a global leader in the hospitality industry, claiming more AAA Five Diamond hotels than any other city in the world.

Today, Las Vegas annually ranks as one of the world's most visited tourist destinations. The city's tolerance for numerous forms of adult entertainment earned it the title of «Sin City», and has made Las Vegas a popular setting for literature, films, television programs, and music videos.

At the close of the 20th century, it was the most populated American city founded within that century . Population growth has accelerated since the 1960s, and between 1990 and 2000 the population nearly doubled, increasing by 85.2%. Rapid growth has continued into the 21st century, and according to estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau, the city had 648,224 residents in 2018, with a metropolitan population of 2,227,053.As with most major metropolitan areas, the name of the primary city is often used to describe areas beyond official city limits.

• The oldest hotel in Las Vegas is the Golden Gate Hotel in Downtown Las Vegas, which opened in 1906
  15 of the world’s top 25 hotels are located in Las Vegas and the Vegas hotels offer a combined total of rooms over 130,000
• The first casino in Las Vegas received its gambling license in 1931
• The 6.8 km stretch of Las Vegas Boulevard is referred to as The Strip, but in fact, it isn’t located in Las Vegas, it's technically located in in Paradise, Nevada
• The Bellagio chocolate fountain is certified by Guinness World Records as the largest chocolate fountain in the world, at over 27 feet tall
• In 2018, Nevada's gaming revenue was $11.9 billion dollars43 percent of Nevada's general fund is fed by gaming revenue
• The Las Vegas Strip is the brightest place on Earth when looked at from outer space
   

administration. The city council comprises seven members, including six members elected by ward as well as the mayor, who presides over the council. All serve four-year terms. The Mayor sits as a Council member-at-large and presides over all of the City council meetings. In the event that the Mayor cannot preside over a City Council meeting, the Mayor Pro-Tem is the presiding officer of the meeting until such time as the Mayor returns to his/her seat. The City Manager is responsible for the administration and the day-to-day operations of all municipal services and city departments. The City Manager maintains intergovernmental relationships with federal, state, county and other local governments.

Approximately 700,000 people live in unincorporated areas governed by Clark County, and another 465,000 live in incorporated cities such as North Las Vegas, Henderson and Boulder City. Las Vegas and Clark County share a police department, the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department, which was formed after a 1973 merger of the Las Vegas Police Department and the Clark County Sheriff's Department. North Las Vegas, Henderson, Boulder City and some colleges have their own police departments. A Paiute Indian reservation occupies about 1 acre in the downtown area.

Agriculture formed the basis of the Las Vegas economy from the mid-19th to the early 20th century. The city’s outlying areas continued to depend on farming and ranching until the 1980s, when the rising cost of obtaining subsurface and river water for fields and pastures caused many to abandon their operations. Whereas agriculture had accounted for the vast majority of water use in the area, the city’s municipal needs began to grow with an increase in population. Since the 1990s, Las Vegas has had one of the fastest-growing employment bases in the country, benefiting from a large labour pool and from a favourable business climate. These conditions enabled city promoters to entice businesses of all kinds to choose Las Vegas over California.Mining constitutes the mainstay of the region’s industrial sector; minerals extracted from the several facilities in the area include silver, gold, lead, and molybdenum. Manufacturing has grown in importance, with most of the plants concentrated in the communities of Henderson and North Las Vegas. Construction has long been a significant component of the economy, serving the rapidly growing population.Although Las Vegas claims to have a diversified economy, the service sector unquestionably is dominant. In addition, trade shows and conventions account for an ever-growing portion of tourism revenues. The Las Vegas Convention Center is one of the largest such facilities in the country.Some two-thirds of all jobs in the region are service-related. The largest concentrations are in the numerous hotels, casinos, and other tourist-related enterprises, where wages typically are low. Nonetheless, labour is well-organized, and union membership is high. Government-related employment is also important; Nellis Air Force Base, adjacent to North Las Vegas, is the metropolitan area’s single largest employer. In addition, wholesale and retail trade and financial services are all significant components of the regional economy.

The primary drivers of the Las Vegas economy are tourism, gaming and conventions, which in turn feed the retail and restaurant industries.

Fremont East, adjacent to the Fremont Street Experience, was granted variances to allow bars to be closer together, similar to the Gaslamp Quarter of San Diego, the goal being to attract a different demographic than the Strip attracts. The Golden Gate Hotel and Casino, located downtown along the Fremont Street Experience, is the oldest continuously operating hotel and casino in Las Vegas; it opened in 1906 as the Hotel Nevada. The year 1931 marked the opening of the Northern Club .

The most notable of the early casinos may have been Binion's Horseshoe while it was run by Benny Binion. Boyd Gaming has a major presence downtown operating the California Hotel & Casino, the Fremont Hotel & Casino and the Main Street Casino. The Four Queens also operates downtown along the Fremont Street Experience.

Downtown casinos that have undergone major renovations and revitalization in recent years include the Golden Nugget Las Vegas, The D Las Vegas , the Downtown Grand Las Vegas , the El Cortez Hotel & Casino and the Plaza Hotel & Casino.
 

Until the early 20th century, Las Vegas was isolated from other population centres and was connected to Los Angeles and Salt Lake City by only a wagon route that required weeks to traverse. That changed in 1904, when a line from the San Pedro, Los Angeles & Salt Lake Railroad to Las Vegas was completed. Today Las Vegas is a regional hub for the Union Pacific Railroad and is served by Amtrak.

The city’s network of county, state, and federal roads is inadequate to meet the transportation needs of the growing population, and Las Vegas Boulevard, portions of the interstate highway, and other arterial roads are often crowded. The city has undertaken a large-scale program of road improvements, the centrepiece of which is the Bruce Woodbury Beltway, constructed as a joint venture with other municipalities in the metropolitan area. The basic road was completed in 2003, and work has continued on converting its entire 53 miles into a limited-access highway. The city maintains an extensive bus system, and a privately built and operated monorail connects many casinos and other attractions on the Strip.

McCarran International Airport is among the fastest-growing airports in the country. The Southern Nevada Foreign Trade Zone—a free-trade zone that includes the airport and allows a variety of goods to be imported duty-free or with reduced excise taxes—has increased the region’s attractiveness to international business interests.

RTC Transit is a public transportation system providing bus service throughout Las Vegas, Henderson, North Las Vegas and other areas of the valley. About 2.3 percent of Las Vegas commuters used all other forms of transportation, including taxi, bicycle, and motorcycle. About 4.3 of working Las Vegas residents worked at home.

In 2015, 10.2 percent of city of Las Vegas households were without a car, which increased slightly to 10.5 percent in 2016. The national average was 8.7 percent in 2016. Las Vegas averaged 1.63 cars per household in 2016, compared to a national average of 1.8 per household.

With some exceptions, including Las Vegas Boulevard, Boulder Highway and Rancho Drive , the majority of surface streets in Las Vegas are laid out in a grid along Public Land Survey System section lines. Many are maintained by the Nevada Department of Transportation as state highways.

Interstates 15, 515, and US 95 lead out of the city in four directions. Two major freeways – Interstate 15 and Interstate 515/U.S. Route 95 – cross in downtown Las Vegas. US 95 heads south from US 93 near Henderson through far eastern California. A partial beltway has been built, consisting of Interstate 215 on the south and Clark County 215 on the west and north. Other radial routes include Blue Diamond Road to Pahrump and Lake Mead Boulevard to Lake Mead.

Responsibility for providing a range of services to the citizenry is shared by the city, the board of supervisors for Clark county, and the governments of nearby municipalities. Las Vegas maintains an airport and road authority, a municipal court system, police and fire departments, waste-management operations, water treatment and delivery facilities, public parks, and public libraries. The city’s municipal park system expanded rapidly in the late 1990s to include such new facilities as Children’s Memorial Park, northwest of downtown, and Heritage Park, which adjoins the Las Vegas Natural History Museum.

The most important component of the region’s infrastructure is its water supply, and water availability is the largest single variable affecting Las Vegas’s sustainability and future growth. Groundwater long constituted the water supply when agriculture accounted for most regional water use. However, urban water demand rose dramatically with the rapid and sustained growth of Las Vegas after 1950, and planners turned to the vast resources of Lake Mead to provide the additional water. The massive Southern Nevada Water Project, funded jointly by the federal and state governments and built between 1968 and the early 1980s , is a complex of distribution and treatment facilities that draws from Lake Mead and now supplies the bulk of regional water needs.