Las Vegas

The Las Vegas Valley was the winter home of the Southern Paiute, who moved to the mountains in summer; the springs that fed its meadows gave the place its Spanish name, "the meadows". The Mexican scout Rafael Rivera is credited as the first non-Native person to see the valley, in 1829, and Latter-day Saint missionaries built an adobe fort beside the springs on the road from Salt Lake City to southern California, completed in 1855 and abandoned in 1857. Las Vegas itself was founded in 1905, when 110 acres beside the new Union Pacific railway were auctioned off as building lots, and it was incorporated in 1911.

The year 1931 made the city. Nevada legalised casino gambling and cut the residency requirement for divorce to six weeks, and work began on Hoover Dam nearby. After the Second World War, lavish hotels, casinos and big-name entertainment became synonymous with Las Vegas, first downtown on Fremont Street and then on the highway south of the city limits that became the Strip. From 1951 nuclear weapons were tested at the Nevada Test Site, 65 miles to the north-west, and visitors watched mushroom clouds from the city — the "Atomic City" — until testing moved underground in 1963.

Growth then accelerated: between 1990 and 2000 the city's population rose by 85 per cent. In the 21st century the city has become a major sports town as well, with the Golden Knights from 2017, the Raiders from 2020, Formula One from 2023 and baseball's Athletics due by 2028, while downtown has been revived with museums, an arts centre and a new city hall.

Las Vegas calls itself the Entertainment Capital of the World, and its culture is built for visitors: stage shows, circus acts, boxing and mixed martial arts — the UFC is headquartered here — and nightclubs, alongside the casinos; it has the most land-based casinos in the world. Its tolerance of adult entertainment earned it the nickname "Sin City" and has made it a popular setting for films.

There is also a local cultural life the Strip hides. The Smith Center downtown is home to the Las Vegas Philharmonic and Nevada Ballet Theatre; the Arts District holds galleries, antique shops and the monthly First Friday; and the Neon Museum preserves the signs of the city's mid-century heyday. The Las Vegas Paiute Tribe has a small reservation just north of downtown.

The city is diverse. About a third of residents are Hispanic, Filipinos are one of the largest ancestry groups in the valley, and the metropolitan area has the largest Native Hawaiian population outside Hawaii. Sport has become a new source of local pride since the Golden Knights' arrival in 2017, and the Athletics' planned move by 2028 will add Major League Baseball.

About 640,000 people lived in the city of Las Vegas at the 2020 census, in a metropolitan area of an estimated 2.4 million; much of that population, and the Strip itself, lies outside the city limits in unincorporated Clark County. The valley drew over 40 million visitors in 2023, and tourism, gaming, conventions and hospitality dominate the economy; the online retailer Zappos has its headquarters downtown and the airline Allegiant in nearby Summerlin, and the lack of state taxes on individuals and corporations has helped draw business.

Many residents work in the resorts, and the city never fully stops: some bus routes, including the Deuce along the Strip, run 24 hours a day, as do many bars and liquor stores. Most people live in the sprawling suburbs — Summerlin to the west, Henderson to the south-east, North Las Vegas — and drive everywhere.

Water and heat are the defining issues. The valley depends on Lake Mead, which fell to its lowest level since it was first filled in August 2026, and conservation has cut daily use per resident sharply since a drought in 2002, with watering limited to set days. Summers are getting hotter: July 2024 was the hottest month ever recorded in the city.

Las Vegas is known for its fine dining as well as its gambling. The big resorts offer everything from buffets and simple cafés to gourmet and Michelin-starred restaurants. Shows, sports events and conventions keep the dining rooms busy late into the night, and many bars are open around the clock.

The buffet is one of the city's best-known food traditions, but by 2026 only a handful of resorts still ran one, and the most famous charged high prices for a weekend dinner. Lunch and breakfast remain the better value.

Away from the resorts, the most interesting eating is in Chinatown. The strip malls along Spring Mountain Road, west of the Strip, hold Chinese and other pan-Asian restaurants, bakeries and shops; the first, Chinatown Plaza, opened in 1995 and was billed by its Taiwanese American founder as America's first master-planned Chinatown. Downtown's Fremont East and the Arts District have the city's independent bars, breweries and small restaurants, liveliest on First Friday. Drinking is easy almost everywhere, and the dry desert heat makes water as important as anything on the menu.