Nye County, Nevada

Nye County is a county in Nevada, United States, anchored by Pahrump, about 60 miles west of
Las Vegas. It had a population of 51,591 at the 2020 census, an estimated 57,336 by 2025, and
covers 18,182 square miles (47,090 km2) of land centred near 38°03′N 116°27′W — the
third-largest county by area in the contiguous United States, after San Bernardino County,
California and Coconino County, Arizona.

Tonopah is the county seat; its postal code is 89049. The county holds no incorporated cities
— Nevada law lets counties govern most communities directly — but Pahrump, Tonopah,
Amargosa Valley, Beatty, Round Mountain, Manhattan and Gabbs are recognized census-designated
places, alongside dozens of smaller named localities and mining camps. Nye County runs on
Pacific Time. Its FIPS code is 32023.

Towns & Villages in Nye County

Nye County has 60 named places on record: 7 census-designated places with their own population
counts and 53 smaller localities, ghost towns and historic mining camps with no incorporated
government or current population count of their own. CDP stands for census designated place;
Unincorp. covers crossroads, ranches and former mining camps with no formal boundary.

Rhyolite, Belmont, Berlin, Ione and Tybo are ghost towns left over from Nye County’s
early-1900s silver and gold booms; none has year-round residents today, but all remain marked
localities and, in Rhyolite’s and Berlin’s cases, state-protected historic sites open to
visitors. Mercury was built as a support town for the former Nevada Test Site and is not open to
the public.

ZIP Codes

• 89048 — Pahrump (also 89041, 89060 and 89061 serve other parts of the community)
• 89049 — Tonopah
• 89020 — Amargosa Valley
• 89003 — Beatty
• 89045 — Round Mountain
• 89409 — Gabbs
• 89022 — Manhattan

Every other named place in the county, from ghost towns like Rhyolite and Belmont to working
ranches like Currant and Darroughs Hot Springs, has no ZIP code of its own; mail there routes
through the nearest post office town above.

Geography

Nye County spans the central Great Basin and reaches south into the Mojave Desert, a range of
terrain wide enough to include both snow-capped peaks and Death Valley National Park, part of
which extends into the county’s southwestern corner. Of the county’s 18,199 square miles,
18,182 are land and 17 are water, about 0.09 percent — a dry county with no large natural
lake. Mount Jefferson, at 11,949 feet (3,642 m), is the county’s highest and most prominent
peak, rising from the Toquima Range north of Tonopah.

Churchill County and Lander County lie to the northwest and north, Eureka County to the north,
White Pine County to the northeast, Lincoln County to the east, Clark County to the southeast,
Esmeralda County and Mineral County to the west, and Inyo County, California, to the south.
Churchill County,
Lander County,
Eureka County,
White Pine County,
Lincoln County,
Clark County,
Esmeralda County,
Mineral County and
Inyo County all border Nye directly.

Demographics

Nye County had a population of 51,591 at the 2020 census, and the latest estimate puts the
county near 57,336 residents. Pahrump alone accounts for roughly 86 percent of that total, making
it by far the county’s largest community; Tonopah, the county seat, is a distant second.
Nevada’s statewide median household income was $76,364 as of the 2023 ACS; within the
county, Amargosa Valley’s median household income was reported at $55,573, below the state
figure and reflecting the poverty rate the same data put near 31 percent in that community. With
land area exceeding 18,000 square miles, county-wide population density works out to under three
people per square mile, among the lowest of any populous county in the country.

Economy & Local Life

Tourism, gaming and government work anchor the county’s economy. Pahrump hosts three
Golden Entertainment casino properties and the Spring Mountain Motor Sports Ranch, and is
headquarters to the Nye County School District, one of the county’s largest employers. Round
Mountain is built around an open-pit, heap-leach gold mine owned by Kinross Gold Corporation,
among the larger gold producers in Nevada since production began there in 1906. The former Nevada
Test Site, now the Nevada National Security Site, sits in the county’s southeast and remains
a significant federal employer, supplied historically through the company town of Mercury.
Nye County is also one of the few Nevada counties where licensed brothels operate legally,
including Sheri’s Ranch and the Chicken Ranch near Pahrump. Beatty and Amargosa Valley draw
visitors headed to Death Valley National Park, eight miles west of Beatty via State Route 374,
and to the Rhyolite ghost town and Goldwell Open Air Museum sculpture park just outside town.

History

Nevada’s territorial legislature created Nye County in 1864, naming it for James W. Nye,
the first governor of Nevada Territory. Prospector Jim Butler’s 1900 silver discovery
founded Tonopah, which grew into the “Queen of the Silver Camps” and became the county
seat; the Mizpah Hotel, completed in 1908, still stands downtown. Gold strikes followed at
Manhattan in 1905 and Round Mountain in 1906, and Rhyolite, founded after an August 1904 gold
find nearby, briefly held thousands of residents before its mines failed and the town emptied by
the 1920s. Gabbs began in 1941 as a company town for a magnesium plant; it incorporated as a city
and later lost that status in 2001. In the mid-20th century, the federal government established
the Nevada Test Site in the county’s southeast for nuclear weapons testing, and decades
later selected nearby Yucca Mountain as the proposed site of a national nuclear waste
repository, a project that has not moved forward to operation.

Getting There

U.S. Route 95 crosses the county from the Clark County line in the south to Esmeralda County
in the north, linking Las Vegas to Reno through Beatty, Amargosa Valley and Tonopah; no interstate
highway reaches Nye County. Nevada State Route 160 connects Pahrump to Las Vegas, and State Route
375, the “Extraterrestrial Highway,” runs northeast from Rachel through the county
toward Ely.

• Las Vegas — about 60 miles east of Pahrump
• Death Valley National Park entrance — about 8 miles west of Beatty
• Reno — roughly midway from Tonopah via US 95
• Ely — northeast of Tonopah via US 6

Harry Reid International Airport in Las Vegas is the nearest major commercial airport, about
60 miles from Pahrump. Tonopah has a small general-aviation airport but no scheduled commercial
service. Nye County has no Amtrak service; Salt Lake Express runs daily bus connections through
Tonopah to both Las Vegas and Reno.

Frequently Asked Questions

Where is Nye County located?
It sits in south-central Nevada, spanning the Great Basin and part of the Mojave Desert, bordered
by eight other Nevada counties and Inyo County, California.

What is the population of Nye County?
51,591 at the 2020 census, with a 2025 estimate near 57,336. Pahrump holds about 86 percent of
that total.

How big is Nye County?
18,199 square miles (47,140 km2) in total, of which 18,182 square miles are land — the
third-largest county by area in the contiguous United States.

What is the county seat of Nye County?
Tonopah, founded after an 1900 silver strike and still home to the historic Mizpah Hotel.

How many towns and communities are in Nye County?
Seven census-designated places — Pahrump, Tonopah, Amargosa Valley, Beatty, Round Mountain,
Gabbs and Manhattan — plus dozens of smaller unincorporated localities and former mining
camps such as Rhyolite, Belmont and Ione.

What ZIP codes does Nye County use?
89048 for Pahrump, 89049 for Tonopah, 89020 for Amargosa Valley, 89003 for Beatty, 89045 for
Round Mountain, 89409 for Gabbs and 89022 for Manhattan.

What is Nye County known for?
Its size — the third-largest county by area in the contiguous US — plus the Nevada
National Security Site, the Round Mountain gold mine, and ghost towns including Rhyolite and
Belmont.

More counties in this state: Towns and villages in Nevada.