There are 16 counties and one independent city in the U.S. state of Nevada. On November 25, 1861, the first Nevada Territorial Legislature established nine counties. Nevada was admitted to the Union on October 31, 1864, with 11 counties. In 1969, Ormsby County and Carson City were consolidated into a single municipal government known as Carson City.

The FIPS county code is the five-digit Federal Information Processing Standard (FIPS) code which uniquely identifies counties and county equivalents in the United States. The three-digit number is unique to each individual county within a state, but to be unique within the entire United States, it must be prefixed by the state code. This means that, for example, while Churchill County, Nevada is 001, Alameda County, California and Baker County, Oregon are also 001. To uniquely identify Churchill County, Nevada, one must use the state code of 32 plus the county code of 001; therefore, the unique nationwide identifier for Churchill County, Nevada is 32001. The links in the column FIPS County Code are to the Census Bureau Info page for that county.

County	FIPS code	County seat	Est.	Origin	Etymology	Population	Area	Map
Carson City	510	(Independent city)	1969	Founded 1858, consolidated with Ormsby county in 1969.	Carson River, named in turn for Christopher Houston (Kit) Carson (1809–1868), the frontier scout and soldier.	58,036	144 sq mi (373 km)
Churchill County	001	Fallon	1861	Original	Sylvester Churchill (1783–1862), a general in the Mexican–American War.	25,803	4,929 sq mi (12,766 km)
Clark County	003	Las Vegas	1909	Lincoln County	William A. Clark (1839–1925), former United States Senator from Montana, and builder of a railroad line through the area.	2,336,573	7,911 sq mi (20,489 km)
Douglas County	005	Minden	1861	Original	Stephen Arnold Douglas (1813–1861), former United States Senator from Illinois.	49,545	710 sq mi (1,839 km)
Elko County	007	Elko	1869	Lander County	A Shoshoni word meaning white woman. It is said, among the very old Shoshoni, that this is where they first saw a white woman.	54,293	17,182 sq mi (44,501 km)
Esmeralda County	009	Goldfield	1861	Original	Esmeralda Mining District, named in turn for the legend that a massive amount of emeralds was buried in what is now Nevada. Esmeralda is the Spanish and Portuguese word for emerald.	736	3,589 sq mi (9,295 km)
Eureka County	011	Eureka	1873	Lander County	Greek expression Eureka, meaning I have found it!, in reference to deposits of silver found in the vicinity.	1,917	4,176 sq mi (10,816 km)
Humboldt County	013	Winnemucca	1861	Original	Humboldt River, named in turn for Alexander von Humboldt (1769–1859), a German naturalist and explorer.	17,136	9,658 sq mi (25,014 km)
Lander County	015	Battle Mountain	1862	Churchill County & Humboldt County	Frederick W. Lander (1821–1862), an American Civil War general and developer of the area.	5,769	5,798 sq mi (15,017 km)
Lincoln County	017	Pioche	1866	Nye County and territory ceded by Arizona.	Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865), the sixteenth President of the United States.	4,452	10,635 sq mi (27,545 km)
Lyon County	019	Yerington	1861	Original	General Nathaniel Lyon (1818–1861), who was killed in action at the Battle of Wilson's Creek.	62,583	1,994 sq mi (5,164 km)
Mineral County	021	Hawthorne	1911	Esmeralda County	Mineral deposits in the area.	4,528	3,757 sq mi (9,731 km)
Nye County	023	Tonopah	1864	Esmeralda County	James W. Nye (1815–1876), a governor of the Nevada Territory and U.S. senator from Nevada.	55,720	18,147 sq mi (47,001 km)
Pershing County	027	Lovelock	1919	Humboldt County	John Joseph (Black Jack) Pershing (1860–1948), the World War I general.	6,364	6,009 sq mi (15,563 km)
Storey County	029	Virginia City	1861	Original	Edward Farris Storey (1829–1860), a captain killed at Pyramid Lake in the 1860 Paiute War.	4,177	264 sq mi (684 km)
Washoe County	031	Reno	1861	Original	The Washoe, a small Indian tribe that inhabits the area.	498,022	6,342 sq mi (16,426 km)
White Pine County	033	Ely	1869	Lander County	Heavy growth of pine trees in the area, thought to be white pine.	8,522	8,877 sq mi (22,991 km)

• Bullfrog County, Nevada, formed in 1987 from part of Nye county. Creation was declared unconstitutional and abolished in 1989.
• Lake County, Nevada, one of the original nine counties formed in 1861. Renamed Roop County in 1862. Part became Lassen County, California in 1864. Nevada remainder annexed in 1883 to Washoe county.
• Ormsby County, Nevada, one of the original nine counties formed in 1861. Consolidated in 1969 with the county seat, Carson City, forming the independent city of that name.