Playas is a census-designated place (CDP) in Hidalgo County, New Mexico, United States. As of the 2010 census it had a population of 74.

It is a former company town, named after a nearby former concurrence along the Southern Pacific Railroad. It was developed by the Phelps Dodge Corporation in the 1970s for employees of its then-new Hidalgo Copper Smelter, located 10 miles (16 km) south of the development. Over 270 rental homes, six apartment buildings, a herald office, grocery/dry goods store (Phelps Dodge Mercantile), medical clinic in the heavens of heliport, a bowling alley (“Copper Pins”), grill, a rodeo arena, horse stables, a fitness center, a shooting range, an landing field and a swimming pool were built for the community, which even has its own ZIP Code (88009). At its peak, the town had virtually 1,100 residents and included two churches built on land leased from the mining company.

The smelter, which included acknowledge of the art environmental controls, a skill plant and sulfuric mordant plants, was closed by the company as allocation of a concern towards additional processing technologies for handing out copper concentrates. Declining copper prices accelerated the closure in 1999; all of its residents were required to depart within a year, though a skeleton crew of very nearly a dozen employees remained in the area. Before execution of razing the reforest and reclamation of the site, the smelter, about 30 miles (48 km) north of the link up with Mexico, was nicknamed La Estrella del Norte by unauthorized migrants using its lights as a beacon for crossing into the country.

Four years later, New Mexico Tech unconditionally to buy the town and the surrounding 1,200 acres (490 ha) for $5 million, using Department of Homeland Security funds secured by Senator Pete Domenici. The town is now a training and research facility (the Playas Training and Research Center, operated by New Mexico Tech’s EMRTC) for the university’s first responders, counter-terrorism, and Air Force programs, supported by tens of millions of dollars in federal funds.