Carson City, officially the Carson City Consolidated Municipality, is an independent city and the capital of the U.S. state of Nevada. As of the 2020 census, the population was 58,639, making it the 6th most populous city in the state. 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 city is named after the mountain man Kit Carson (1809-1868). 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 1861, when it was still a territory. For much of its history, it was a hub for the Virginia and Truckee Railroad, although the tracks were removed in 1950.

Before 1969, Carson City was the county seat of Ormsby County. That year, after a referendum approved merging the city and the county, the state legislature issued a revised city charter that merged them into the Carson City Consolidated Municipality. 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.

The Washoe people have inhabited the valley and surrounding areas for about 6,000 years.

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. Fremont named the river flowing through the valley Carson River in honor of Kit Carson (1809-1868), the mountain man, explorer, and scout he had hired for his expedition. Later, settlers named the area Washoe in reference to the indigenous people.

By 1851, the Eagle Station ranch along the Carson River was a trading post and stop-over for westbound travelers and wagons on the California Trail's Carson Branch, which ran through Eagle Valley. The valley and the trading post received their name from a bald eagle that was hunted and killed by one of the early settlers and was featured pinned on a wall inside the post.

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. Early settlers bristled at the control by Mormon-influenced officials and desired the creation of the provisional Nevada Territory with Isaac Roop (1822-1869, served 1859-1861), as provisional Governor. 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. In 1858, Abraham Curry bought Eagle Station and the settlement was thereafter renamed Carson City. Curry and several other partners had Eagle Valley surveyed for development. Curry decided Carson City would someday serve as the capital city and left a 10-acre (40,000 m²) plot in the center of town for a capitol building.

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. When new territorial governor James W. Nye (1815-1876, served 1861-1864), traveled east to Nevada, he chose Carson City as the territorial capital instead of earlier Genoa, which had functioned temporarily as such for the past few years. 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. As such, Carson City bested Virginia City and American Flat. Curry loaned the Warm Springs Hotel to the territorial Legislature as a temporary meeting hall. The Legislature named Carson City to be the county seat of Ormsby County and also selected the hotel as the territorial prison, with Curry serving as its first warden. Today, the property is still part of the state prison.

When Nevada became the 36th state in 1864 during the American Civil War (1861-1865), Carson City was confirmed as Nevada's permanent state capital. Carson City's development was no longer dependent on the mining industry and instead became a thriving commercial center. The Virginia and Truckee Railroad was built between Virginia City and Carson City. A log flume was also built from the Sierra Nevada mountains range into Carson City. The current Nevada State Capitol building was constructed from 1869 to 1871. The United States Mint also operated its branch of the Carson City Mint between the years of 1870 and 1893, which struck gold and silver coins of United States currency. People came from China during that time, many to work on the transcontinental railroad being constructed. Some of them owned businesses and taught school. By 1880, almost a thousand Chinese people, "one for every five Caucasians," lived in Carson City.