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Nevada, NV

Nevada is a state located in the western region
of the United States of America. The capital is Carson City
and the largest city is Las Vegas.
The state's official nickname is "The Silver
State", due to the large number of silver deposits that were
discovered and mined there.
In 1864, Nevada became the 36th state to enter
the union, and the phrase "Battle Born" on the state flag
reflects the state's entry on the Union side during the
American Civil War. Much of Nevada is desolate wilderness,
from the Mojave Desert in the south to the Great Basin in the
north, and about 86% of the state's land is actually
controlled by the US federal government under various
jurisdictions including military.
As of 2006, the population of the state was
about 2.6 million, with over 85% residing in the metropolitan
areas around Las Vegas and Reno.
The state is well known for its easy marriage
and divorce proceedings, legalization of gambling and, in some
counties, prostitution.
It also has some of the country's strictest
drug laws.
In 2005, the state issued a specialty license
plate via the Nevada Commission on Tourism that lists the name
of the state as Nevăda to help with a pronunciation problem.
Geography
The state is broken up by several north-south
mountain ranges. Most of those ranges have inland-draining
valleys between them, which belies the image portrayed by the
term Great Basin.
Much of the northern part of the state is
within the Great Basin Desert, a mild desert that experiences
hot temperatures in the summer and sub-freezing temperatures
in the winter. Occasionally, moisture from the Arizona Monsoon
will cause summer thunderstorms; Pacific storms may blanket
the area with snow.
The state's highest recorded temperature was
125 °F (52 °C) in Laughlin (elevation of 605 feet (184 m)) on
29 June 1994.
The Humboldt River crosses from east to west
across the northern part of the state, draining into the
Humboldt Sink near Lovelock.
Several rivers drain from the Sierra Nevada
eastward, including the Walker, Truckee and Carson rivers. The
mountain ranges, some of which have peaks above 13,000 feet
(4,000 m), harbor lush forests high above desert plains,
creating sky islands for endemic species.
The valleys are often no lower in elevation
than 3,000 feet (900 m). The eastern parts of the state
receive more summer moisture and have a slightly more verdant
terrain. Sagebrush grows everywhere and some rivers and
streams break the desert terrain.
The southern third of the state, where the Las
Vegas area is situated, is within the Mojave Desert. The area
receives less rain in the winter but is closer to the Arizona
Monsoon in the summer.
The terrain is also lower, mostly below 4,000
feet (1,200 m), creating conditions for hot summer days and
cool to chilly winter nights due to inversion. Nevada and
California have by far the longest diagonal line (in respect
to the cardinal directions) as a state boundary at just over
400 miles (640 km).
This line begins in Lake Tahoe nearly 4 miles
(6 km) offshore (in the direction of the boundary), and
continues to the Colorado River where the Nevada, California,
and Arizona boundaries merge 12 miles (19 km) southwest of the
Laughlin Bridge.
The largest mountain range in the southern
portion of the state is the Spring Mountains, just west of Las
Vegas.
The state's lowest point is along the Colorado
River, south of Laughlin.
Mining
Mining shaped Nevada's economy for many years
(see Silver mining in Nevada).
However in the late 19th century, Nevada found
it increasingly more difficult to compete with states such as
Colorado and Utah in the mining industry.
There was even talk of stripping away
statehood, the only time in American history such an action
was discussed in Congress.
However, the rich silver strike at Tonopah in
1900 is thought to have saved the state from near collapse.
This was followed by strikes in Goldfield and
Rhyolite, lasting well into the 1910s and making Nevada a
dominant player in mining once again.
Gambling and labor
Unregulated gambling was common place in the
early Nevada mining towns but outlawed in 1909 as part of a
nation-wide anti-gaming crusade.
Due to subsequent declines in mining output and
the decline of the agricultural sector during the Great
Depression, Nevada re-legalized gambling on March 19, 1931,
with approval from the legislature.
At the time, the leading proponents of gambling
expected that it would be a short term fix until the state's
economic base widened to include less cyclical industries.
However, re-outlawing gambling has never been seriously
considered since, and the industry has become Nevada's primary
source of revenue today.
In 1931, construction began on Hoover Dam near
Boulder City. Thousands of workers from across the country
came to build the dam, and providing for their needs in turn
required many more workers.
The boom in population is likely to have fueled
the relegalization of gambling, alike present-day industry.
Both Hoover Dam and later war industries such
as the Basic Magnesium Plant first started the growth of the
southern area of the state near Las Vegas.
Over the last 75 years, Clark County has grown
in relation to the Reno area, and today encompasses most of
the state's population.
This article is licensed under
the
GNU Free Documentation License.
It uses material from the
Wikipedia
article "Nevada".
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