The majority of the city's population lives in Eagle Valley, on the eastern edge of the Carson Range, a branch of the Sierra Nevada, about 30 miles (50 km) south of Reno.

The town began as a stopover for California-bound immigrants, but developed into a city with the Comstock Lode, a silver strike in the mountains to the northeast.

The city has served as Nevada's capital since statehood in 1864; for much of its history it was a hub for the Virginia and Truckee Railroad, although the tracks were removed in 1950.

[5] With the consolidation, the city limits extend west across the Sierra Nevada to the California-Nevada state line in the middle of Lake Tahoe.

Like other independent cities in the United States, it is treated as a county-equivalent for census purposes.

[6] The first European Americans to arrive in what is now known as Eagle Valley were John C. Frémont and his exploration party in January 1843.

As the area was part of the larger Utah Territory (1850-1896), it was governed from the territorial (and later state) capital of Salt Lake City on the eastern shore of the Great Salt Lake, where the territorial government was headquartered there several hundred miles further east with Mormon (The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints) patriarch of Brigham Young (1801-1877), as first Governor of Utah.

A vigilante group of influential settlers, headed by Abraham Curry (1815-1873), sought a site for a capital city for the envisioned future separate territory.

[9] In 1858, Abraham Curry bought Eagle Station and the settlement was thereafter renamed Carson City.

After gold and silver ore were discovered in 1859 on the nearby newly-named Comstock Lode, Carson City's population began to grow.

Curry built the Warm Springs Hotel a mile to the east of the town center.

Influenced by Carson City lawyer William M. Stewart (1827-1909), who escorted him from the port of San Francisco, California where he arrived onboard a passenger steamboat liner, then journeying uphill past Sacramento to Nevada.

Curry loaned the Warm Springs Hotel to the territorial Legislature as a temporary meeting hall.

Carson City's development was no longer dependent on the mining industry and instead became a thriving commercial center.

A log flume was also built from the Sierra Nevada mountains range into Carson City.

The new branch also bypassed the Virginia & Truckee line, and ran too far to the north to benefit Carson City.

The city slowly grew after World War II (1939/1941-1945); by 1960, it had reached its former 1880 mining boom-town era population size of 80 years before.

As early as the late 1940s, discussions began about merging Ormsby County and Carson City.

[13] In 1991, the city adopted a downtown master plan, specifying no building within 500 feet (150 metres) of the capitol would surpass it in height.

[14] The Ormsby House is the tallest building in downtown Carson City, at a height of 117 feet (36 m).

Since the consolidation, the city limits today include several small populated areas outside of this valley.

The city is in a high desert river valley approximately 4,802 feet (1,464 m) above sea level.

Most precipitation occurs in winter and spring, with summer and fall being fairly dry, drier than neighboring California.

[18] Carson City is the smallest of the United States' 366 metropolitan statistical areas.

In total, 17.7% (9,174) of Carson City's population age 5 and older spoke a first language other than English.

In 2008, however, Barack Obama became the first Democrat since 1964 to win Ormsby County/Carson City, defeating John McCain 49–48%, by 204 votes, a margin of under 1%.

[33][34][35] In an attempt to either make a proposed spent nuclear fuel storage facility at Yucca Mountain prohibitively expensive (by raising property tax rates to the maximum allowed) or to allow the state to collect the potential federal payments of property taxes on the facility, the state government in 1987 carved Yucca Mountain out of Nye County and created a new county with no residents out of the area surrounding Yucca called Bullfrog County.

[38] Many neighborhood parks offer a wide variety of features including picnic tables, beaches, restrooms, fishing, softball, basketball hoops, ponds, tennis, and volleyball.

Passenger trains have not served Carson City since 1950, when the Virginia and Truckee Railroad was shut down.