Nevada Judicial Districts: Which District Court Serves Each County
NRS 3.010 divides Nevada into 11 judicial districts, each made up of one or more counties. Washoe County alone is the Second Judicial District and Clark County alone is the Eighth — and between them those two districts hold 74 of the state’s 90 district judges. Every other county shares a district or has its own, as the map and table below show.
By Ask Nevada Law Editorial · Updated
The 11 districts, county by county
Legend: judicial districts
- First — Carson City, Storey
- Second — Washoe
- Third — Lyon
- Fourth — Elko
- Fifth — Esmeralda, Nye
- Sixth — Humboldt
- Seventh — Eureka, White Pine, Lincoln
- Eighth — Clark
- Ninth — Douglas
- Tenth — Churchill
- Eleventh — Lander, Mineral, Pershing
| Carson City * | First Judicial District | Carson City |
|---|---|---|
| Churchill | Tenth Judicial District | Fallon |
| Clark | Eighth Judicial District | Las Vegas |
| Douglas | Ninth Judicial District | Minden |
| Elko | Fourth Judicial District | Elko |
| Esmeralda | Fifth Judicial District | Goldfield |
| Eureka | Seventh Judicial District | Eureka |
| Humboldt | Sixth Judicial District | Winnemucca |
| Lander | Eleventh Judicial District | Battle Mountain |
| Lincoln | Seventh Judicial District | Pioche |
| Lyon | Third Judicial District | Yerington |
| Mineral | Eleventh Judicial District | Hawthorne |
| Nye | Fifth Judicial District | Tonopah |
| Pershing | Eleventh Judicial District | Lovelock |
| Storey | First Judicial District | Virginia City |
| Washoe | Second Judicial District | Reno |
| White Pine | Seventh Judicial District | Ely |
*Carson City is a consolidated municipality, not a county; NRS 3.010 places it in the First Judicial District.
Districts are set by statute
The district lines are not drawn by the courts — they are written directly into NRS 3.010, which declares that “the State is hereby divided into 11 judicial districts” and then names the county or counties that constitute each one. Companion sections (NRS 3.011 through 3.0197) fix the number of district judges in each district, and NRS 3.100 directs district courts to hold court at the county seat of their respective counties, with county commissioners able to add locations.
The two urban districts carry most of the caseload capacity. The Second Judicial District (Washoe County, seat in Reno) has 16 judges — nine district judges plus seven family court judges. The Eighth Judicial District (Clark County, seat in Las Vegas) has 58 — 32 district judges plus 26 family court judges. The other nine districts, covering the remaining 15 counties and Carson City, share the other 16 judges; the Sixth, Tenth, and Eleventh districts each have a single district judge.
No state “circuit courts” in Nevada
These are state district courts — Nevada has no state courts called “circuit courts.” When a circuit comes up in connection with Nevada, it is the federal Ninth Circuit: appeals from Nevada’s federal trial court go to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, a different system from the 11 state judicial districts on this page. The federal courts in Nevada page explains that track, and how the Nevada court system works covers the state hierarchy these districts belong to.