Las Vegas, city, seat (1909) of Clark county, southeastern Nevada, U.S. The only major city in the American West to have been founded in the 20th century, Las Vegas grew from a tiny, desert-bound railroad service centre at the outset of the 20th century to the country’s fastest-growing metropolis at century’s end. This transformation—made possible by a combination of shrewd entrepreneurship, access to water, an extensive transportation network, and permissive state laws—has created the city now often known simply as “Vegas,” a place of vast casinos, elaborate hotels, and spectacular entertainment venues that attracts masses of visitors from throughout the world.

Las Vegas is a place of million-lightbulb signs and fantastic architecture, of readily visible wealth and carefully hidden poverty. It is a place of superlatives, both positive and negative. Within the city stand the largest glass pyramid in the world; one of the largest hotels in the country, with more than 5,000 rooms; and one of the most expensive hotels ever constructed, the Bellagio. The area along Las Vegas Boulevard and its adjoining near-downtown streets—the famous “Strip”—is the “City Without Clocks,” whose multibillion-dollar economy is devoted to servicing a wide array of impulses and addictions of many kinds. It is this Las Vegas, the flashy playground unofficially known as “Sin City,” that the American novelist and essayist Joan Didion once termed.

Place a bet at a world-famous casino

With one foot in the past and one in the future, the nearly 50-year-old Caesars Palace remains an icon of classic Sin City decadence. Caesars is one of the last old-school properties remaining, and few Las Vegas casinos can match it for atmosphere.

Get into the spirits (and wines) of Sin City

The most striking thing that sets the Strip’s bars apart from most watering holes elsewhere is the sheer number of bottles. Cocktail connoisseurs should head to the Downtown Cocktail Room, where specialty drinks are rated on a level of 1 (“very approachable”) to 5 (“advanced palate”). Wine drinkers should set their sights on Aureole, where the bottles are housed in a four-story wine tower that requires harnessed “wine angels” to retrieve them.

Check out an offbeat museum

The one-of-a-kind, often terrifying Atomic Testing Museum pulls back the curtain on the Nevada Test Site and the state’s history as nuclear-weapons guinea pig. Downtown, organized-crime buffs will flip for the Mob Museum, which details the mafia’s involvement with Sin City’s rise. If you want a visual tour through Vegas history, head to the Neon Museum on the north end of the Strip, where signs, lights and other Sin City architectural artifacts are preserved.

Dine mountainside on the Strip at Steve Wynn’s man-made wonder

From the outside, the Wynn Lake of Dreams looks like a small, tree-covered hill, but inside the resort, maverick mogul Steve Wynn has created an Alpine-like getaway, complete with a 150-ft mountain, 40-ft waterfall and old foliage repurposed from the site’s original Desert Inn golf course. Enjoy an evening meal on the terraces at SW Steakhouse or Lakeside, or a cocktail at Parasol Down, and watch as the lake comes alive in brilliant hues