94% of Vacant Land in Clark County is Federally Controlled

Did you know these statistics about land in southern Nevada?

The vast majority of developable land that remains in Clark County is controlled by the Federal Government. 94% of vacant land in Clark County is federally controlled.

While we often hear about “urban sprawl” as a concern, in Southern Nevada we are among the most densely populated metropolitan areas in the nation.
In fact, according to the Lied Research Report released in May of 2026:

“In terms of density, the Las Vegas-Henderson Paradise, NV MSA ranks as the 16th most dense MSA out of 233, placing it in the top 7% nationally, ahead of the San Diego-Chula Vista-Carlsbad, CA MSA, the Houston-The Woodlands-Sugar Land, TX MSA, and the Phoenix-Mesa-Chandler, AZ MSA. Similarly, on street connectivity, the Las Vegas MSA ranks 13th out of 233, placing it in the top 6% of the most connected metropolitan areas in the country. On the overall compactness index, the Las Vegas MSA ranks 69th out of 233, placing it in the top 30% of least sprawling metropolitan areas in the United States.
Contributing to these findings is the fact that roughly 88% of Clark County is managed by the federal government, which constrains outward expansion and concentrates development within a
bounded footprint commonly referred to as the SNPLMA Disposal Boundary. This structural factor contributes to the metro’s comparatively high-density profile.”

Source: Map produced by the Lied Center for Real Estate. Data sourced from the BLM, Clark County Assessor, GISMO, and the U.S. Census Bureau. Vacant parcels are defined by cat. 1 series – vacant land use codes. While not illustrated here, the subset of “vacant and developable” parcels would constitute the subset of vacant parcels without binding legal, physical, or economic constraints that would limit development potential. Information regarding the disposal of federal lands in Southern Nevada per SNPLMA (1998) is available here as well as here.