Lake Mead National Recreation Area
protected area in Clark County, Nevada and Mohave County, Arizona in the United States
Lake Mead National Recreation Area is a U.S. national recreation area in Southeastern Nevada and Northwestern Arizona. Operated by the National Park Service, Lake Mead NRA follows the Colorado River corridor from the westernmost boundary of Grand Canyon National Park to just north of the cities of Laughlin, Nevada and Bullhead City, Arizona. It includes all of the eponymous Lake Mead as well as the smaller Lake Mohave – reservoirs on the river created by Hoover Dam and Davis Dam, respectively – and the surrounding desert terrain and wilderness.
Formation of Lake Mead began in 1935, less than a year before Hoover Dam was completed. The area surrounding Lake Mead was protected as a bird refuge in 1933 and later established as the Boulder Dam Recreation Area in 1936 and the name was changed to Lake Mead National Recreation Area in 1947. In 1964, the area was expanded to include Lake Mohave and its surrounding area and became the first National Recreation Area to be designated as such by the U.S. Congress.
Amenities
Lake Mead NRA features water recreation, including boating, swimming, and fishing, on both lakes as well as the stretches of river between the lakes. It also features hiking trails and views of the surrounding desert landscape. Three of the four desert ecosystems found in the United States — the Mojave Desert, the Great Basin Desert, and the Sonoran Desert — meet in Lake Mead NRA. Tours of Hoover Dam – administered by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation – are also a major attraction within the recreation area.
About 200,000 acres (81,000 ha) of the recreation area are managed separately under the Grand Canyon-Parashant National Monument, established in 2000.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Lake Mead National Recreation Area” is protected area in Clark County, Nevada and Mohave County, Arizona in the United States. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Lake, Mead and National, not as a finished interpretation.
Why this record matters
The phrase “protected area in Clark County, Nevada and Mohave County, Arizona in the United States” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.
Maps, plans, fabric surveys and administrative records can establish how the site’s name, extent and function changed over time. The source revision retrieved here is dated Feb 23, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q6476864. VIAF identifies the subject as 158338087. The Library of Congress control number is sh2005004907. Authority coordinates are 36.010, -114.797. 4 of 5 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1935, 1933, 1936 and 1947.
Modern boundaries and familiar names can conceal earlier jurisdictions or structures that do not align with the present site. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Treat names, boundaries and functions as historically changeable. Maps, plans, inventories and administrative records can clarify what the place meant at different dates.
- Historic place names
- Jurisdictional context
- Routes into maps and plans
Contemporary maps, plans, listed-building records, estate papers and the responsible local or national archive.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Lake Mead National Recreation Area”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Lake Mead National Recreation Area primary sources, Lake Mead National Recreation Area archive and Lake research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Lake Mead National Recreation Area”?
- Which authority defined the place, boundary or structure at the relevant date?
- What physical evidence or contemporary plan supports the description?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Lake Mead National Recreation Area” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.