You sometimes write about the populations of Nevada cities and obviously, Las Vegas has the most people and Henderson comes in second. But what's the third largest city in the state? We have friends in Reno who tell us that northern Nevada is growing by leaps and bounds. But with all the development in North Las Vegas, does it now have more residents than Reno?
Right you are.
Las Vegas, of course, is the most populous city in Nevada, with approximately 660,000 in the city proper as of 2023 and nearing three million in the Metropolitan Statistical Area. Henderson is second. It boasts around 335,000 (2023). As for third, North Las Vegas and Reno have been vying for the designation, but a clear winner has emerged.
According to the 2020 Census, Reno was the third most populous, with just under 265,000 people, while North Las Vegas was fourth with 262,500. But then NLV came on strong and by 2021, its population was estimated at 271,104, while Reno's had grown to 270,019. And North Las Vegas' lead has been widening ever since, claiming 292,623 at the end of last year versus Reno's 274,915.
Interestingly, the Apex Industrial Park is credited with North Las Vegas' population boom over the last few years and it has taken a page from the Reno playbook to do so. It's an 18,000-acre park with 7,000 acres of developable land near the I-15/US 93 interchange that's becoming a major free port and distribution center for the Southwest and beyond, just as Reno has been developing for many years. Apex hosts a million-square-foot Crocs warehouse, the largest of its kind in the state (overtaking IGT's Reno building). Smiths has a distribution center there as well, and California-based Prologis is building out an 11-million-square-foot development on nearly 900 acres, more than 10% of the developable industrial park.
Reno, likewise, has the Tahoe-Reno Industrial Center (TRI Center or TRIC), though that's around 10 miles east of the Reno metro area. It boasts Tesla, Google, Apple, Switch, and a number of smaller tech companies on its sprawling 107,000-acre campus.
But North Las Vegas has a lot more developable land, overall, than Reno, so it's positioned to remain in the lead, at least population wise, for the foreseeable future.
And what's number five? That would be Sparks, Reno's contiguous neighbor, with 110,323 at the end of 2023.
