Is near an adjective

Near can actually be an adverb, adjective, or preposition depending on the way in which it is used. For example:

Adjective: the near fields

Preposition: near the city

Adverb: Sunset was drawing near.

Interestingly, the first and second uses can be viewed as one, under the heading of "prepositional adjective". A prepositional adjective is an adjective which can take an object. In the second example above, "the city" is the object of near. Why is the near in "near the city" an adjective? Because we can also say, "nearest the city".