Nevada County is a county located in the U.S. state of Arkansas. As of the 2010 census, the population was 8,997. The county seat is Prescott. Nevada County is Arkansas's 63rd county, formed on March 20, 1871, from portions of Hempstead, Ouachita and Columbia Counties. It was named after the state of Nevada because of the perceived similarity between their physical shapes; the Arkansas county's shape roughly follows the same outline as the state's boundary when inverted. In contrast with the name of the state, the local pronunciation for the southwestern Arkansas county is "nuh-VAY-duh". It is an alcohol prohibition or dry county.