Las Vegas

City in southeastern Nevada; seat of Clark County; population (2000 est) 478,400. With its many nightclubs and gambling casinos, Las Vegas attracted over 35 million visitors each year. It is also a major convention centre. Founded in 1855 in a ranching area, the modern community developed with the coming of the railroad in 1905 and was incorporated as a city in 1911. The first casino hotel opened here in 1947. Las Vegas is the easiest place to get married in the USA, with numerous chapels along the Strip (main street) and hotel chapels.

Las Vegas was originally a stopping place on the Spanish trail between Santa Fe and California. The settlement was founded in 1855 by Mormons who were moving southwest from Salt Lake City. Growth was slight until railway construction took place in 1905 and the town was incorporated in 1911; since then its development has been spectacular, with the Las Vegas metropolitan area sustaining a population increase of 115% in the decade 1960–70. The city's growth was helped by both its proximity to the population centres of southern California, and the development of air conditioning. The city continues to have some of the highest population growth rates of any US city, with an 85% increase 1990–2000.

The city is the seat of the University of Nevada–Las Vegas (1957); Nellis Air Force Base, Hoover Dam, and Lake Mead National Recreation Area are nearby. Fort Baker, an army base, was established here in 1864.

The city's most expensive hotel, the Bellagio, opened in October 1998 on the Strip. It included a US$300 million collection of works by such artists as Monet, Gauguin, Renoir, Degas, van Gogh, Picasso, and Matisse. The Guggenheim Museum and the Guggenheim Hermitage, a joint venture with the Hermitage Museum of St Petersburg, Russia, opened in 2001.