It’s the difference between the actual cities of Las Vegas, Detroit, and Philadelphia, and the Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSAs).
The City of Las Vegas actually occupies a mere 84 square miles, while the Las Vegas Valley is 600 square miles. The MSA, known as the Las Vegas-Henderson-Pahrump Metropolitan Statistical Area, encompasses all of Clark County and Pahrump, located in southeastern Nye County, in an area roughly 8,000 square miles, comparable to the entire state of Massachusetts. The MSA has an estimated July 2010 population of 2,282,708 (which has nearly tripled from the 852,646 in 1990).
All that said, the population of the City of Las Vegas, also estimated in July 2010, is 564,484. It’s the 26th largest city, measured by population, in the United States.
By comparison, the City of Detroit is the U.S.’s 11th largest city, with an estimated population of 808,398.
And Philadelphia, home to the new Sugar House Casino, is the sixth largest U.S. city, with an estimated population of 1,448,911.
