US Map / Cities / North Las Vegas

North Las Vegas Map

North Las Vegas covers the northern side of the Las Vegas Valley and reaches out along the interstate toward Utah, well past where the suburbs stop.

Where is North Las Vegas?

North Las Vegas is in southern Nevada, adjoining Las Vegas on its northern side — downtown Las Vegas is about five miles south of the city's core, and the boundary between the two runs down ordinary streets. Henderson is roughly 20 miles southeast on the far side of the valley. Beyond the metropolitan area the map empties fast: Los Angeles is about 280 miles southwest, Phoenix some 300 miles southeast, and Salt Lake City around 420 miles northeast up I-15, which is the direction North Las Vegas has been growing.

North Las Vegas at a glance

North Las Vegas in Nevada

North Las Vegas is the third largest city in Nevada, behind Las Vegas and Henderson and just ahead of Reno at the far end of the state, and like the first two it is in Clark County — a county holding roughly three-quarters of the state's people, as the Nevada county map shows. It incorporated in 1946, when it was a cheap unregulated settlement outside the Las Vegas city limits, and its character since has been more industrial and residential than tourist: warehousing, distribution and light manufacturing rather than casinos. Nellis Air Force Base sits against its northeastern edge and is one of the largest employers in the valley. The Nevada state page covers the state's north-south split.

Valley floor, ranges and the Apex corridor

The Las Vegas Valley is a basin about 2,000 feet above sea level, enclosed on every side by desert ranges: the Spring Mountains to the west, where Charleston Peak rises close to 12,000 feet and holds snow into spring, Frenchman Mountain to the east, and the Sheep and Las Vegas ranges to the north. North Las Vegas occupies the sloping alluvial fans on the northern side, where the ground rises gently from the valley floor toward those ranges. This is Mojave Desert country — under five inches of rain a year, no perennial streams, and flash floods carried in engineered channels when storms do arrive. The city has annexed a long corridor north along I-15 to the Apex industrial area, land far outside the built-up valley that gives it room most valley cities no longer have.

Cities near North Las Vegas

Las Vegas and Henderson are the immediate neighbors, Reno is at the other end of the state, and Phoenix and Los Angeles are the nearest big cities beyond Nevada. Nevada runs on Pacific Time; because Arizona keeps Mountain Time without daylight saving, the clocks here match Phoenix all summer and fall an hour behind it in winter.