The Lakes is a 2 square miles (5.2 km²) planned community

Planned community

A planned community, or planned city, is any community that was carefully planned from its inception and is typically constructed in a previously undeveloped area. This contrasts with settlements that evolve in a more ad hoc fashion. Land use conflicts are less frequent in planned communities since...

 located within the city limits of Las Vegas

Las Vegas, Nevada

Las Vegas is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Nevada and is also the county seat of Clark County, Nevada. Las Vegas is an internationally renowned major resort city for gambling, shopping, and fine dining. The city bills itself as The Entertainment Capital of the World, and is famous...

, Nevada

Nevada

Nevada is a state in the western, mountain west, and southwestern regions of the United States. With an area of and a population of about 2.7 million, it is the 7th-largest and 35th-most populous state. Over two-thirds of Nevada's people live in the Las Vegas metropolitan area, which contains its...

. It is located in the western part of the Las Vegas Valley near the Spring Mountains

Spring Mountains

The Spring Mountains are a mountain range of southern Nevada in the United States, running generally northwest-southeast along the west side of Las Vegas and down to the border with California...

 and Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area

Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area

Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area in Nevada is an area managed by the Bureau of Land Management as part of its National Landscape Conservation System, and protected as a National Conservation Area. It is located about west of Las Vegas, and easily seen from the Las Vegas Strip...

. The centerpiece of the community, and its namesake, is a large man-made lake. It was built from the mid-1980s to the mid-1990s, and at the time was at the edge of development in the valley. It consists of a mixture of single-family homes, apartments, condominiums, commercial

Commercial property

The term commercial property refers to buildings or land intended to generate a profit, either from capital gain or rental income.-Definition:...

 and office

Office

An office is generally a room or other area in which people work, but may also denote a position within an organization with specific duties attached to it ; the latter is in fact an earlier usage, office as place originally referring to the location of one's duty. When used as an adjective, the...

.

The community is bounded by Sahara Avenue to the North, Durango Drive to the east, Desert Inn Road to the South, and Hualapai Way to the West. Several other notable master-planned communities are adjacent, including Summerlin to the west and Peccole Ranch and Canyon Gate to the north.

Economy

Citicards, a subsidiary of Citibank

Citibank

Citibank, a major international bank, is the consumer banking arm of financial services giant Citigroup. Citibank was founded in 1812 as the City Bank of New York, later First National City Bank of New York...

, located its main Payment Processing Center here in 1990. The United States Postal Service

United States Postal Service

The United States Postal Service is an independent agency of the United States government responsible for providing postal service in the United States...

 has since created two ZIP codes to handle the large volume of mail involved. In an effort to avoid having the negative connotation of credit card

Credit card

A credit card is a small plastic card issued to users as a system of payment. It allows its holder to buy goods and services based on the holder's promise to pay for these goods and services...

payments going to Las Vegas, these ZIP codes have been assigned the place name The Lakes, Nevada.