Las Vegas

Las Vegas is the largest city in the state of Nevada, USA. It is located in the middle of the Mojave Desert (the driest of the four North American deserts) in Clark County. Mormons founded the city in 1855, which became the early twentieth century an agricultural village.

With liberal laws relating to gaming in the State of Nevada, the city has earned a worldwide reputation for its casinos and its journals. Because of the huge hotel capacity of the city (more than 120,000 hotel rooms, making it the city's first hotel in the world), it is also a place of choice for hosting major conventions. Las Vegas is also the temple of shopping, especially with its large shopping centers (the Fashion Show Mall, for example, located on the Strip).

Las Vegas is a premier tourist destination in the United States. In 2004, the city has hosted the game 37.4 million visitors, 80% from California.

Las Vegas is the seat of Clark County since 1909 (the year of the creation of the county). It is also the seat of a Catholic diocese. According to the Census Bureau of the United States, the population of the municipality is 583 756 inhabitants in 2010.1 The population of the metropolitan area has tripled in twenty years and has 1,951,269 inhabitants in 2010 to Las Vegas After the thirtieth municipality and the urban area of the thirtieth country2. The Greater Las Vegas does not match the metropolitan area (MSA). Its territory covers only 1906 km2 collecting 1,868,220 inhabitants 1,951,269 on the metropolitan area (Clark County) account. A dozen municipalities make up the metropolitan area (Las Vegas, Enterprise, North Las Vegas, Spring Valley, Winchester, Paradise, Boulder City, Henderson ...).

The broader metropolitan area (CSA) covers two counties (Clark and Nye), or 67,487 square kilometers with a population of 2,013,326 inhabitants.

Las Vegas is one of the largest cities in the United States. However, it has no major league team owned professional sports such as the NFL (American football), MLB (baseball), NBA (basketball) and NHL (ice hockey). This feature can be explained by the fact that the leaders of these major league experience some reluctance to coexist professional franchise with this "game world" and bookmakers.

The city has a professional American football franchise in theaters, the Las Vegas Gladiators playing in Arena Football League, they play in the Orleans Arena (9500 seats) with the Las Vegas Wranglers are an ice hockey team in the East Coast Hockey League.

The main baseball club of the city are the Las Vegas 51s of the League of the Pacific Coast, which plays in the Cashman Field (9334 seats). The 51s are a AAA minor league team affiliated with the New York Mets MLB.

The Las Vegas area has three major basketball teams: the Las Vegas Stars (International Basketball League), the PROLYMs Las Vegas and Henderson All-Starz (American Basketball Association 2000).

In February 2007, the Thomas & Mack Center (main sports hall in the city with about 19,000 seats) hosted the NBA All-Star Game in 2007.

Since 1986, the city hosts the Open in Las Vegas is a male tennis tournament which takes place in late February, sometimes early May.

The Las Vegas Motor Speedway (LVMS) is a conventional circuit located north of the city, which hosts racing like NASCAR. The circuit is a "D-oval" (oval-shaped D), has a length of 2.414 km and has a capacity of 156,000 spectators. It belongs to the Speedway Motorsports, Inc., headquartered in Charlotte, North Carolina. The main events are the Shelby American NASCAR (Sprint Cup), the Sam's Town 300 (Nationwide Series) and the Las Vegas 350 (Camping World Truck Truck Series).

In college sports, the Rebels of UNLV (NCAA) defend the colors of the University of Nevada (Las Vegas). The football team of Rebels play Sam Boyd Stadium (36,800 seats) while that of basketball plays at the Thomas & Mack Center (18,776 seats). Since 1992, the Sam Boyd Stadium Las Vegas Bowl is organizing a football game usually between university teams from the Pacific Ten Conference and the Mountain West Conference.

The city of Las Vegas is located in the south of the State of Nevada, Clark County (36 ° 11 '39 "N 115 ° 13' 19" W). According to the Census Bureau of the United States, the city covers an area of ​​340 km2. A small part of this area (0.04%) is covered by water.

The city lies in a valley (Las Vegas Valley) in the heart of an arid basin surrounded by snow-capped mountains in winter: string Spring (2512 meters), Rainbow Mountain to the west line north of Las Vegas, Sunrise Mountain and Frenchman Mountain east (1,025 meters), Black Mountain to the south (1,552 meters). Landscapes that are around is desert and geological characteristics of the Great Basin region.

The average altitude is 620 meters above the mean level of the sea. Due to urbanization and sampling ground water, the soil is affected by subsidence related to the flaws quaternaire4