Las Vegas is the biggest city in Nevada and one of the fastest growing cities in the United States. Its main claim to fame world-wide is as a resort city. It calls itself the Entertainment Capital of the World and it is one of the top tourist destinations for visitors world-wide.

Like all other important resort cities in the world, Las Vegas had to find a reason that people would want come to a remote desert part of Nevada where the daytime temperature often soars to the 30s °C. The key to the success of Las Vegas is the Las Vegas Strip, and that is the journey we make through Las Vegas in the video.

So what is the strip, and why do people flock to come here. It is not for its history. The city is not old - just a little short of 200 years. It was mentioned in 1844 by early traveler John Freemont, who wrote many stories for the benefit of pioneers. It is half way to Salt Lake City, Utah from Los Angeles, California. Here Mormons built a fort and a place they could get new supplies before making the final leg of their journey. In this desert area, the site was precious because it was on one of the small creeks that flowed from Las Vegas Springs. The site of the fort is now a State Park.

But nothing much developed after this until 1931. Las Vegas was just a small town by a creek. In 1931 the state of Nevada legalised casinos and gambling in a country in which in most other states gambling was illegal (the time was called Prohibition). At the same time the giant Hoover Dam was just being started, needing thousands of workers.

People found they could fly from anywhere in the US and gamble quite legally in Las Vegas. This was a time when gangsters saw a way of making money from the new relaxed laws in Nevada, and for a while, Las Vegas was not thought of as a good place to live. But all of that changed in the 1960s when big business altered the word gambling to gaming and started to build giant hotels and casinos that could cater for family entertainment as well as gambling. This is when it started to become a resort.

Like many desert towns of this time, it was little more than a single main street. These businesses located their casinos just outside of town along this main road and closer to the airport, which was the main way the tourists arrived. This part of the main highway then got the nickname 'Las Vegas Strip'. The Strip, part of Interstate 15, is 4mi/7km long and is one of the nations most important scenic routes at night because of the way all of the buildings are illuminated. But it is far more than that. All of the hotels have been built on a dramatic scale, often u ing historical themes from around the world. Fifteen of the worlds 25 largest hotels are on the Strip.