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Las Vegas Travel

Las Vegas is the largest city in Nevada and a major tourist destination. At the 2000 census, the city had a population of 478,434 making it the largest city in the state of Nevada. The city's official population estimate as of July 1, 2002 is 514,640. Las Vegas is the county seat of Clark County, Nevada. The metropolitan area of Las Vegas boasts a population greater than 1.7 million people (October 2004 estimate).

The name "Las Vegas" is often also applied to the unincorporated areas of Clark County that surround the city, especially the resort areas on and near the Las Vegas Strip. This four and a half mile stretch of Las Vegas Boulevard is mostly outside the Las Vegas city limits, in the township of Paradise, Nevada.

The MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada, USA, is the largest hotel in the world, with over 5000 rooms. It also houses a casino, numerous shops and night clubs, and a major concert venue. It is owned and operated by the MGM Mirage company. It is predominantly green in color.

The hotel known as the "MGM Grand" used to be about a mile north of the current location on the Las Vegas Strip, at the site now occupied by Bally. At approximately 07:10 on the morning of November 21, 1980, a fire broke out in a delicatessen at that building, a 26 story resort with over 2,000 hotel rooms. About 5,000 people were in the hotel and casino at the time of the fire. Eighty-seven people died in this fire.

When the MGM Grand opened at its current site in 1993, it included the Grand Adventures theme park on property adjacent to the casino. The plan was to make Las Vegas more "family friendly" by providing activities for children who were too young to gamble. The theme park performed poorly, however, and did not reopen for the 2001 season. On December 5, 2002, MGM Mirage announced that the former theme park would be developed as a luxury condominium and hotel complex.

Originally, the MGM Grand was built with an extensive Wizard of Oz theme (hence the green "Emerald City" color of the building) and was decorated extensively with Wizard of Oz memorabilia. In 2000, the hotel underwent a renovation and almost all traces of the "Oz" theme were removed.