LAS VEGAS

Las Vegas officially the City of Las Vegas and often known as simply Vegas, is a city in the United States, the most populous city in the state of Nevada, the county seat of Clark County, and the city proper of the Las Vegas Valley. Las Vegas is an internationally renowned major resort city known primarily for gambling, shopping, fine dining and nightlife and is the leading financial and cultural center for Southern Nevada.

The city bills itself as The Entertainment Capital of the World, and is famous for its mega casino–hotels and associated entertainment. Las Vegas is the 29th-most populous city in the United States. The city is one of the top three leading destinations in the United States for conventions, business, and meetings. In addition, the city's metropolitan area has more AAA Five Diamond hotels than any other city in the world, and is a global leader in the hospitality industry. Today, Las Vegas is one of the top tourist destinations in the world.

Las Vegas is known sometimes as the "Sin City" due to the popularity of the game and legalized gambling, availability of alcoholic beverages at any time of day, the legality of prostitution in neighboring counties. Local government and tourism promoters of the city used the phrase "What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas".

HISTORY

Perhaps the earliest visitors to the Las Vegas area were nomadic Paleo-Indians, who traveled here 10,000 years ago, leaving behind petroglyphs. Anasazi and Paiute tribes followed at least 2,000 years ago.

The area was named Las Vegas, which is Spanish for "the meadows", as it featured abundant wild grasses, as well as desert spring waters for westward travelers. Las Vegas was founded as a city in 1905, when 110 acres (45 ha) of land adjacent to the Union Pacific Railroad tracks were auctioned in what would become the downtown area. In 1911, Las Vegas was incorporated as a city.

The 1950s saw the opening of the Moulin Rouge, the first racially integrated casino-hotel in Las Vegas.

"Las Vegas evokes images of divorce and dice, prostitutes and payoffs, gangsters and glitz. But beneath it all is a sordid history that is much more insidious and far-reaching than ever imagined. Now, at the dawn of the new century, this neon maelstrom of ruthlessness and greed stands to not as an aberrant “sin city,” but as a natural outgrowth of the corruption and worship of money that have come to permeate American life" (The money and the Power, 2002).

“The story of Las Vegas' last hundred years is a distinctly American saga of optimism and opportunity. By 1999, it had become one of the fastest growing cities in the United States and could lay claim, in the words of one historian, to be "the first city of the twenty-first century." Las Vegas is full of unlikely heroes and villains, who have traced the city's development from a remote frontier way-station to its Depression-era incarnation as the "Gateway to the Hoover Dam"; from its mid-century florescence as the gangster metropolis known as "Sin City" to its recent renaissance as acorporately-financed, postmodern, desert fantasyland”. ( Las Vegas: An Unconventional History, 2005).

PLACE

Among the buildings of Las Vegas we can find the city center, consisting of casinos of all kinds. The casinos are very often connected by underground passageways including air conditioning repellent high temperatures in the city. The show, exhibitions, art galleries and museums generate as much revenue as casinos. Theming makes them unique to each hotel, some with five diamond category. For example:

•    Paris Las Vegas: It is a hotel and casino is owned by Caesars Entertainment, its theme is the city of Paris in France; it includes a half-scale replica of the Eiffel Tower, a neon sign in the shape of the globe, an Arc de Triomphe and a replica of the Plaza of the Concorde.The front facade of the building suggests the Paris Opera Garnier and Museum Louvre.

•       The Caesars Palace: It is a hotel and casino Roman temple-like stretched to be converted into a skyscraper. The interior looks like a walk through the old Roman Empire and machines look and shows robots, fire, water and lights that resemble fights between gods are observed. It has 3,349 rooms in five towers. It was inaugurated on August 5, 1966.

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•         Treasure Island: surrounded by water and has a free show specialists and dancers representing every half hour and includes pirate ships, sirens and fireworks.

•         New York, New York, with a facade composed of miniatures of iconic buildings in New York and a small Statue of Liberty. Internal recreation of a small portion of the city.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

• The Money and the Power, Sally Delton - Roger Morris, 2002, Las Vegas - Nevada, Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group.
• Las Vegas: An Unconventional History, Michelle Ferrari - Stephen Ives, 2005, Las Vegas - Nevada, Bulfinch Press.
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Las_Vegas
• http://www.history.com/topics/las-vegas