What is the fastest-growing city in Nevada?

Mesquite is the fastest-growing city in the state of Nevada, according to the latest numbers from the U.S. Census Bureau.

The city’s population jumped 10.5 percent from 20,616 in 2020 to 22,786 in 2023, according to the census. Located in Clark County, Mesquite lies within the Virgin River Valley about 80 miles northeast of Las Vegas.

Natalie Hafen, a corporate broker with ERA Brokers Consolidated, who has lived in Mesquite since 1988, said everything started to take off for the municipality when the Palms Golf Club opened in 1990.

The city has a unique advantage of straddling two state lines (Nevada and Arizona), she said, and also being close to Las Vegas and St. George, Utah.

“It’s kind of in the middle of nowhere but it’s also kind of in the middle of everything,” Hafen said. “And you are close enough to Las Vegas that you can go to a show and still be home within an hour, and then you can also drive up to St. George as well in around the same time. So you’re in a rural area and don’t have to be in a big city.”

Hafen said Mesquite is primarily known as a golf retirement community and has a large snowbird population (retired people who relocate to warmer climates during the winter), but it’s real estate market has expanded as of late with more commercial and retail offerings.

The census recently released city population data from 2020-23, with the fastest-growing city in the country with more than 20,000 people being Celina, Texas, which grew by 26.6 percent. That’s more than 53 times the nation’s growth rate of 0.5 percent.

In sheer numbers, San Antonio, Texas, is the fastest-growing city in the country as it added more than 22,000 people from 2020 to 2023 to its population base, pushing its overall number to 1.5 million.

In Nevada, the second fastest-growing city is North Las Vegas, which grew 9 percent from 261,214 people in 2020 to 284,771 last year, according to the census. Now North Las Vegas has more people than Reno (274,915), making it the new third-largest municipality behind Las Vegas (660,929) and Henderson (319,072).

And the state’s capital, Carson City, saw a 1.1 percent decline in population from 58,686 to 58,036 in 2023, the only city in the state to see a drop, according to the census.

Henderson’s population grew 1.8 percent from 2022 until the end of last year, placing it fourth in the country for metros with more than 250,000 residents, Axios, which obtained its data from the census, reported. Topping the list is Atlanta (2.4 percent), followed by Fort Worth, Texas, (2.2 percent) and Raleigh, North Carolina (1.9 percent).

According to the census, Henderson grew 6.3 percent from 2020-23, going from 317,321 residents to 337,305.

The median price for a home in Henderson is $427,903 and the median rent is $1,641, according to Redfin. Approximately 35 percent of Henderson residents have a bachelor’s degree, and the median household income is $85,311.

Contact Patrick Blennerhassett at pblennerhassett@reviewjournal.com.