Nevada is a state in the Western United States. Nearly three-quarters of Nevada's people live in Clark County, which contains the Las Vegas–Paradise metropolitan area. Nevada's capital is the modestly-sized Carson City.

Nevada is known as the "Silver State" because of the importance of silver to its history and economy.

Nevada is largely desert and semi-arid, much of it within the Great Basin. The highest land is to the west, which rises to the Sierra Nevada mountains. This area, west of Reno, includes Lake Tahoe.

Unusually, the great majority of Nevada land is managed by the U.S. federal government, for civil and military purposes.

When the first Spanish explored this land, it was already home to the Paiute, Shoshone, and Washoe Native Americans. The Spanish called it Nevada ( which means snowy in Spanish) because of the mountain snows in winter. The United States annexed the area in 1848 after its victory in the Mexican–American War, and it was incorporated as part of Utah Territory in 1850. The discovery of silver at the Comstock Lode near Virginia City in 1859 led to a population boom and the creation of Nevada Territory out of western Utah Territory in 1861. Nevada became the 36th state on October 31, 1864.

Nevada was once sparsely populated, and much of it remains so today. However, legalized gambling and lenient marriage and divorce laws changed Nevada into a major tourist destination. This is why the state has a number of very large urban areas and virtually no other urban areas. Nevada is still the fourth-largest producer of gold in the world. [15]