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Known for Sin City, hot sweltering desert, the Hoover Dam, and ghost towns - Nevada is rich in culture and national history.  The state entered into the Union on October 31, 1864 to become the 36th state.  It has a total area of about 110,000 square miles and a population of just over 2.3 million people most of which live in the Las Vegas area, although the capital city is Carson City - which is located south of Reno and east of Lake Tahoe near the California border.

Las Vegas (AKA Sin City) is Nevada's biggest tourist attraction.  In fact, it is one of the world’s biggest tourist attractions!  Think Branson, Missouri's big, rich uncle!  Las Vegas used to known primarily for it's gambling, showgirls, and seedy entertainment but today it has all that and more!  Visit the Las Vegas strip at any time of day and you'll see why this is the city that never sleeps.  Lit up from head to toe with light, there are more than 1700 legal gambling casinos and hotels in the Las Vegas area and each year more than 36 million people come to Vegas for a vacation.  Some of the more popular casinos and hotels are The Luxor, The MGM Grand, Excalibur, Circus Circus, New York New York, and Mandalay Bay.

But Vegas isn't the only thing going on in Nevada - far from it.  It is also the number one gold mining producing state in the country and there are ghost towns scattered all over the state to remind people of how it was in the past.   It is also home to the famed Hoover Dam which was constructed between 1931 and 1936, and was dedicated on September 30, 1935 by President Franklin Roosevelt. More than a hundred people died as it was built.  The Hoover Dam was created to harness the power of the mighty Colorado River, which originates high up in the Colorado Rockies and flows past or through 5 other states which include Nevada. 

Anxious to use the river to generate hydroelectric power 7 states (Wyoming, Colorado, Utah, Nevada, New Mexico, California, and Arizona) formed a compact (to avoid unfavorable legislation over water rights) in 1922. Wyoming was included into this pact because it has tributaries which flow into the Colorado. Hoover Dam is a testimony to a country's ability to construct monolithic projects in the midst of adverse conditions. Built during the Depression; thousands of men and their families came to Black Canyon to tame the Colorado River. It took less than five years, in a harsh and barren land, to build the largest dam of its time.

Now, years later, Hoover Dam still stands as a world-renowned structure. The Dam is a National Historic Landmark and has been rated by the American Society of Civil Engineers as one of America's Seven Modern Civil Engineering Wonders.  Learn more about this amazing project in the videos below.

A brief history of Arizona. Drag the time line to see more events and click on the titles to see a description.

Download the State of Nevada Reference Map

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