In 2010, Nevada's center of population was in southern Nye County, near Yucca Mountain.

[4] The Nevada Test Site and proposed Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository are in southwestern Nye County, and are the focus of a great deal of controversy.

A 1987 attempt to stop the nuclear waste site resulted in the creation of Bullfrog County, Nevada, which was dissolved two years later.

The county has several environmentally sensitive areas, including Ash Meadows National Wildlife Refuge, the White River Valley, several Great Basin sky islands, and part of Death Valley National Park.

The seat of government in Tonopah is 160 miles (260 km) from Pahrump, where about 86% of the county's population resides.

[6] With development at the military test site and increasing employment and resources, the population stabilized.

After the 1990s, when Pahrump became a bedroom community for Las Vegas, it had high rates of population growth.

Its population was zero; its creation was an attempt to stop a nuclear waste storage facility from being built in the region.

[9] The highest and most topographically prominent mountain in the county is Mount Jefferson at 11,949 feet (3,642 m).

Before the Treaty of Ruby Valley, the whole area was controlled by the Western Shoshone people, who say they never ceded territory here.

Las Vegas, in Clark County, is 100 miles (160 km) southeast of Yucca Mountain.

Many Pahrump residents commute 60 miles (97 km) each way to Las Vegas via Nevada State Route 160, which for much of its length is a four-lane divided highway.

[11][12] In 2023, Pahrump Valley Public Transportation launch demand response service to Beatty and Amargosa Valley[13] For Senior Transportation/Paratransit transportation services is directly provided by Nye County Transportation Services department[14] Nye County has a long stretch of U.S. Route 95, the main road connecting Las Vegas with the state capital, Carson City.

This was slightly faster growth rate than recorded during the same period for Clark County, where Las Vegas is located.

African-Americans were now 1.7% of the population, which meant actual increase of the number of African Americans residing in the county was over 50%.

[22] According to the Centers for Disease Control, the annual suicide rate in Nye County averaged 28.7561 per 100,000 people during 1989–1998, the most recent period for which data is available.

[29] Nye County was one of the primary broadcast locations of American veteran radio broadcaster Art Bell, who was famous for creating and hosting Coast to Coast AM, Art Bell's Dark Matter and "Midnight in the Desert", the last of which continued to be broadcast on the Dark Matter Digital Network by Bell's chosen successor, Dave Schrader.