Las Cruces (; Spanish: [las ‘kruses] “the crosses”) is the second-largest city in the U.S. state of New Mexico and the seat of Doña Ana County. As of the 2020 census the population was 111,385. Las Cruces is the largest city in both Doña Ana County and southern New Mexico. The Las Cruces metropolitan Place had an estimated population of 213,849 in 2017. It is the principal city of a metropolitan statistical area which encompasses all of Doña Ana County and is share of the larger El Paso–Las Cruces sum up statistical area.

Las Cruces is the economic and geographic middle of the Mesilla Valley, the agricultural region on the floodplain of the Rio Grande which extends from Hatch to the west side of El Paso, Texas. Las Cruces is the home of New Mexico State University (NMSU), New Mexico’s isolated land-grant university. The city’s major employer is the federal government on nearby White Sands Test Facility and White Sands Missile Range. The Organ Mountains, 10 miles (16 km) to the east, are dominant in the city’s landscape, along later the Doña Ana Mountains, Robledo Mountains, and Picacho Peak. Las Cruces lies 225 miles (362 km) south of Albuquerque, 42 miles (68 km) northwest of El Paso, Texas and 41 miles (66 km) north of the Mexican affix at Sunland Park.

Spaceport America, which has corporate offices in Las Cruces, operates from 55 miles (89 km) to the north; it has completed several rich crewed, sub-orbital flights. The city is after that the headquarters for Virgin Galactic, the world’s first company to give sub-orbital spaceflights.

During the Mexican–American War, the Battle of El Bracito was fought nearby on Christmas Day, 1846. The agreement of Las Cruces was founded in 1849 subsequent to the US Army first surveyed the town, thus creation up the Place for American settlement. The town was first surveyed as the upshot of the American acquisition of the house surrounding Las Cruces, which well along became the New Mexico Territory. This land had been ceded to the United States fittingly of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo of 1848, which curtains the Mexican American War.^: 36, 40 The town was named, “Las Cruces,” after three crosses which were like located just north of the town.