About Lake Mead National Recreation Area
The Lake Mead National Recreation Area consists of 1.4 million acres of land with over 700 miles of pristine shoreline, including nine marinas on Lakes Mead and Mohave. This is a land of startling contrasts – desert and water, mountains and canyons.
Although most visitors are attracted to Lake Mead National Recreation Area because of Lakes Mead and Mohave, more than 87% of the park protects a vast area of the eastern Mojave Desert. This area contains a wealth of cultural resources, including petroglyphs carved on the rocks many hundreds of years ago by early Native American inhabitants. You can also find plant communities representative of three deserts, the Great Basin, the Sonoran, and the Mojave Desert.
Quick Facts About Lake Mead
- Lake Mead is the largest man-made lake and reservoir in the United States. Enough to flood the entire state of New York with 1 foot of water
- The lake is located on the Colorado River in Nevada and Arizona. It is only 30 miles from Las Vegas
- The water in Lake Mead eventually spills over the Hoover Dam and supplies water to the states of Nevada and California
