Nuketown is the smallest map in Call of Duty: Black Ops, being slightly smaller than the Call of Duty: World at Warmap "Dome". The map is based on a typical US suburb used to demonstrate the effects of a nuclear weapon on a residential area; mannequins as well as accessible buildings and vehicles are shown across the map. There is a special alley for the RC-XD to travel without the danger of being shot, but if you do not make the ramp, it will blow up, wasting your killstreak. The only way to get past the ramp is by using your boost. This can be found at a hole inside the fence on either of the two house's spawns. Except on the Wii there are no holes in the fence so you can not take the short cut. You will need to follow the grass and jump from one rock to another. This will require you to boost your RC-XD. This track leads to the rear of the enemy spawn. Nuketown also features an internet meme, the double rainbowand the names of certain characters on the post boxes outside the houses. It also features a nuclear weapon going off at the end of every game. If players shoot the heads off all the mannequins in the playable area (excluding the mannequins inside of the bus) in 15 seconds, there will be a special surprise. While many players originally thought that this challenge caused the nuke to detonate early, shooting all of the mannequins in the required amount of time causes The Rolling Stones' song; "Sympathy for the Devil" to play for the players. Also there are supports that act as ladders that can be climbed to get onto the rack that players land on when jumping out the window. This can be used to get kills on players who are camping upstairs or have a claymore planted by the door. These supports are on both of the houses.

Another interesting thing about Nuketown is the population sign. When in front of the green house there is a city sign with the text "Nuketown". Below that a population count is shown that actually is the number of players in the game at the moment.

High killstreaks such as a Chopper Gunner, Gunship and Dogs are extremely effective on this map, where the spawns are very small, allowing spawn killing to be easily achieved, though you can effectively hide in either house from Gunships and Chopper Gunners. It is unlikely that your Chopper Gunner or Gunship will be destroyed because you are constantly aiming for the spawn and killing them straight away or if they are inside the buildings, they can't destroy you anyway. The only four locations where the attack dogs can't get you are the the two roof racks on both houses, the top of the barbecue in the backyard of the yellow house and on top of the bunk bed in the yellow house.

Nuketown is a love it or hate it map. Many players love this map due to its quick tempo of games, close quarters combat and that it is relatively easy to get kills. However this is the same reason why other players hate the map, as whole teams can be spawn killed by player controlled killstreaks, or by players in objective based games due to there only being two spawn points. Players will often die to "random" grenades or just die quickly in general, therefore making a bad game very frustrating, however most of the Black Ops community loves this map and usually votes for it. At one point in time there was a new "limited time only" multiplayer playlist called Nuketown 24/7, which only played nuketown but had every gamemode. It was a limited time engagement. It is not advised to snipe here because once the enemies notice you, there will be lots of grenades coming through the window and you will probably die. You can can counteract this by using Flak Jacket and Tactical Mask if they assault your position. The best weapons to use are a sub-machine guns or light machine guns; sub-machine guns for their high fire rate and light machine guns for their large magazine capable of taking down multiple enemies without reloading.