page_title: Las Vegas Valley
section_title: Geography and environment
hierarchical_section_title: Las Vegas Valley / Geography and environment
caption_attribution_description: English: Las Vegas at night. (North is to the right of the picture.) The surrounding darkness of the desert presents a stark contrast to the brightly lit street grid of the developed area. The Vegas Strip is reputed to be the brightest spot on Earth due to the concentration of lights on its hotels and casinos. The tarmac of McCarran International Airport is dark by comparison, while the airstrips of Nellis Air Force Base on the north-eastern fringe are likewise dark. The dark mass of Frenchman Mountain borders the city to the east.
context_page_description: The Las Vegas Valley is a major metropolitan area in the southern part of the U.S. state of Nevada. The state's largest urban agglomeration, the Las Vegas Metropolitan Statistical Area is coextensive since 2003 with Clark County, Nevada. The Valley is largely defined by the Las Vegas Valley landform, a 600 sq mi basin area surrounded by mountains to the north, south, east and west of the metropolitan area. The Valley is home to the three largest incorporated cities in Nevada: Las Vegas, Henderson and North Las Vegas. Eleven unincorporated towns governed by the Clark County government are part of the Las Vegas Township and constitute the largest community in the state of Nevada.
  The names Las Vegas and Vegas are interchangeably used to indicate the Valley, the Strip, and the city, and as a brand by the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority to denominate the region. The Valley is affectionately known as the "ninth island" by Hawaii natives and Las Vegans alike, in part due to the large number of people originally from Hawaii who live in and regularly travel to Las Vegas.
context_section_description: The Las Vegas Valley lies in the Mojave Desert. The valley in the northwest section is a northwest-by-southeast trending area, and trending parallel to Las Vegas Wash, lies at the northeast of the Spring Mountains massif.
  U.S. Route 95 leaves Las Vegas's northwest and goes northwesterly through the northwest valley section, with Las Vegas Wash about 2 miles (3 km) northeast. U.S. 95 lies on the southwest perimeter of the valley bottomlands, and small alluvial fan areas from the northeast Spring Mountains border southwest.
  A "distorted surface", a playa-like region, occurs at the farthest northwest area, for about 15 to 18 miles (24 to 29 km), starting from Nevada Route 157. At Nevada Route 156, 10 miles (16 km) northwest, the distorted surface, bottom land turns north, a 6 miles (9.7 km) area in length and about 3 miles (4.8 km) wide. It lies at the south drainage section of the Three Lakes Valley, where a water divide separates Dog Bone Lake in the valley's center from the southwest washes that drain into the Las Vegas Valley (upland Las Vegas Wash).
  The Corn Creek Dunes lie about 5 miles (8.0 km) southwest of Route 156's intersection with U.S. 95, and they are slightly northeast of Las Vegas Wash.
  The Las Vegas Valley is around 1,600 square miles (4,100 km²). All perimeters, except the northwest, are foothills or mountain ranges, with all highway routes entering the foothills; this includes the Interstate 15 to the southwest, as it climbs to Jean Pass (north), before traversing Ivanpah Valley. Only the U.S. Route 95 northwest follows an actual valley. The northwest section, thus describes the entire landform as a central, and large valley with an attached feeder valley northwest, and in this case the northwest source, and actual course of the Las Vegas Wash.
  The valley is a fault-bounded structural and hydrologic basin made of alluvial-fan deposits. There are several aquifers contained within the valley including the Las Vegas Aquifer. These heavily depleted water sources exist at about 660–980 feet (200–300 m) in depth. As of 1986, estimate show that the valley floor in Downtown Las Vegas has subsided by about 6.2 feet (1.9 m) and about 2.9 feet (0.88 m) along The Strip as a result of pumping from these aquifers.
caption: Las Vegas at night in 2010.
exif: {"Image Make": "NIKON CORPORATION", "Image Model": "NIKON D3S", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "240", "Image YResolution": "240", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "GIMP 2.6.8", "Image DateTime": "2010:12:13 10:30:16", "Image ExifOffset": "198", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "894", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "4512", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/15", "EXIF FNumber": "14/5", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Manual", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "12800", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0221", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2010:11:30 12:06:00", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2010:11:30 12:06:00", "EXIF ShutterSpeedValue": "3906891/1000000", "EXIF ApertureValue": "1485427/500000", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "3", "EXIF SubjectDistance": "4294967295", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF LightSource": "Unknown", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire", "EXIF FocalLength": "180", "EXIF SubSecTime": "30", "EXIF SubSecTimeOriginal": "30", "EXIF SubSecTimeDigitized": "30", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "4256", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "2832", "EXIF SensingMethod": "One-chip color area", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF SceneType": "Directly Photographed", "EXIF CVAPattern": "[2, 0, 2, 0, 0, 1, 1, 2]", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Manual Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF DigitalZoomRatio": "1", "EXIF FocalLengthIn35mmFilm": "180", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF GainControl": "High gain up", "EXIF Contrast": "Normal", "EXIF Saturation": "Normal", "EXIF Sharpness": "Normal", "EXIF SubjectDistanceRange": "0"}