The world's most concentrated entertainment economy — where 42 million visitors per year arrive to watch Cirque du Soleil, lose money at odds designed by mathematicians, eat at restaurants run by celebrity chefs who don't cook there, and see elaborate replicas of Venice, Paris, New York, and ancient Egypt without leaving one street
Las Vegas (660,000 city; metro 2.3 million) is the world's preeminent entertainment city and the only major US metropolitan area built almost entirely on tourism and gaming. The Strip (Las Vegas Boulevard South, 4.2 miles), anchored by 30 mega-resorts including Bellagio (3,950 rooms), MGM Grand (6,852 rooms), and The Venetian (7,117 suites), is the most commercially intense mile of real estate in the US — the neon and LED lighting on the Strip produces more light pollution per square mile than any other place in the world. Las Vegas generates $70+ billion in gaming revenue per year and hosts…
The Las Vegas Valley was inhabited by Southern Paiute people for centuries before Mormon settlers built a fort here in 1855. The city was incorporated in 1905 as a railway junction on the San Pedro, Los Angeles and Salt Lake Railroad. Nevada legalised gambling in 1931 (during the Great Depression), and the construction of the Hoover Dam (1931–1936, 40 miles southeast) brought a workforce that created the market for Las Vegas's first casinos. The mob era (1940s–1970s), associated with the Flamingo (opened 1946 by Bugsy Siegel with mob financing), transformed Las Vegas from a desert railroad to…