Nevada county map

How Nevada’s counties are laid out

Nevada has 17 county-level units: 16 counties plus Carson City, a consolidated municipality that counts as a county equivalent. They divide 110,572 square miles, the seventh-largest state, so the average county is about 6,500 square miles — and yet 3,104,614 people lived in the state in 2020, with about 2.27 million of them in Clark County alone. Outside Clark and Washoe (Reno) counties the whole state has fewer than 400,000 people spread across the basins and ranges of the Great Basin.

The counties reflect two eras. The original nine were created in 1861 by the first territorial legislature, all in the west along the California line where the Comstock silver strike at Virginia City had drawn settlers: Churchill, Douglas, Esmeralda, Humboldt, Lake (soon renamed Roop and later absorbed by Washoe), Lyon, Ormsby, Storey and Washoe. The eastern counties — Lander, Nye, Lincoln, Elko, White Pine and Eureka — were added between 1862 and 1873 as mining camps spread east, and Nevada gained its eastern strip from Utah Territory in 1862 and 1866 and its southern tip from Arizona Territory in 1867. Clark County was only cut from Lincoln County in 1909, four years after the railroad founded Las Vegas.

The state is on Pacific Time, with one exception: West Wendover in Elko County, on the Utah line, officially keeps Mountain Time to match Salt Lake City, and the border town of Jackpot does so unofficially.

All 17 counties of Nevada

Five county facts

• Largest by area: Nye County, seat Tonopah, about 18,200 square miles — bigger than Maryland, Delaware and Rhode Island combined and the third-largest county in the lower 48 after San Bernardino and Coconino. It contains most of the Nevada Test Site and Nellis ranges. Elko, Lincoln, Humboldt and White Pine counties are each over 8,800 square miles.
• Smallest by area: Carson City, about 160 square miles, is the smallest county-equivalent. Among the counties proper, Storey County (Virginia City) is smallest at about 260 square miles.
• Most populous: Clark County, seat Las Vegas, with about 2,266,000 people in 2020 — 73 per cent of the state and the eleventh most populous county in the US. Washoe County (Reno) is a distant second at about 487,000.
• Least populous: Esmeralda County, seat Goldfield, with about 730 people in 3,600 square miles. Goldfield itself, a boom town of 20,000 around 1907, now has fewer than 300 residents. Eureka, Storey, Lincoln, Pershing, Mineral and Lander counties are also under 6,000.
• Oldest and newest: The 1861 counties — Churchill, Douglas, Esmeralda, Humboldt, Lyon, Storey and Washoe survive under their original names — are the oldest. Pershing County, split from Humboldt in 1919, is the newest. Carson City became an independent city in 1969 when it merged with Ormsby County, the only county to have been abolished; a short-lived Bullfrog County (1987–89) had no residents and was struck down by the courts.

Reading the map

Press Streets and zoom in on the highlighted state to see county lines. The seven small western counties cluster around Lake Tahoe and the Truckee, Carson and Walker rivers: Washoe runs from Reno north to the Oregon line, Carson City and Douglas sit on the California border, and Storey, Lyon and Churchill lie east along Interstate 80 and US 50. Nye County stretches from the Sierra foothills almost to Las Vegas; Clark County fills the southern point where the Colorado River and Lake Mead form the Arizona line. Humboldt, Elko and White Pine counties are ranching and gold-mining country along I-80 and US 93 in the north-east. Great Basin National Park is in White Pine County; the Mojave Desert covers Clark County and southern Nye.

Related maps

• Nevada map — cities, borders and geography.
• Blank Nevada map and printable Nevada map.
• Carson City, the state capital; Las Vegas, the largest city, in Clark County.
• Neighbouring county maps: Oregon, Idaho, Utah, Arizona, California.
• Mountain division · the West · Southwest region · Pacific Time Zone.
• Geography: Colorado River, Mojave Desert, Sierra Nevada, US deserts.
• All US county maps.