Alaska
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| State of Alaska |
|
|
| Official language(s) |
English |
| Spoken language(s) |
English 85.7%,
Native North American 5.2%,
Spanish 2.9% |
| Demonym |
Alaskan |
| Capital |
Juneau |
| Largest city |
Anchorage |
| Area |
Ranked 1st in the US |
| - Total |
663,267 sq mi
(1,717,854 km²) |
| - Width |
808 miles (1,300 km) |
| - Length |
1,479 miles (2,380 km) |
| - % water |
13.383 |
| - Latitude |
51°20'N to 71°50'N |
| - Longitude |
130°W to 172°E |
| Population |
Ranked 47th in the US |
| - Total |
626,932 |
| - Density |
1.06/sq mi
0.41/km² (50th in the US) |
| - Median income |
US$54,627 (6th) |
| Elevation |
|
| - Highest point |
Mount McKinley[1]
20,320 ft (6,193.7 m) |
| - Mean |
1900 ft (580 m) |
| - Lowest point |
Pacific Ocean[1]
0 ft (0 m) |
| Admission to Union |
January 3, 1959 (49th) |
| Governor |
Sarah Palin (R) |
| Lieutenant Governor |
Sean Parnell (R) |
| U.S. Senators |
Ted Stevens (R)
Lisa Murkowski (R) |
| Congressional Delegation |
Don Young (R) (list) |
| Time zones |
|
| - east of 169° 30' |
Alaska: UTC-9/DST-8 |
| - west of 169° 30' |
Aleutian: UTC-10/DST-9 |
| Abbreviations |
AK US-AK |
| Website |
www.alaska.gov |
Alaska (IPA: /əˈlæskə/, Russian: Аляска Alyaska) is a sparsely populated state in the United States of America, in the northwest of the North American continent. It is the largest U.S. state by area (by a substantial margin), and one of the wealthiest (per capita).[2][3]
The area that became Alaska was purchased from the Russian Empire on March 30, 1867,
for 7.2 million dollars (at 2 cents per acre, about 5 ¢/ha) after
Congress concluded its resources could be vitally important to the
nation's future growth. The land went through several administrative
changes before becoming an organized territory on May 11, 1912 and the 49th state of the U.S. on January 3, 1959.
The name "Alaska" was already introduced in the Russian colonial time,
when it was only used for the peninsula and is derived from the Aleut alaxsxaq, meaning "the mainland," or more literally, "the object towards which the action of the sea is directed."[4] It is also known as Alyeska, the "great land", an Aleut word derived from the same root.
Geography
Alaska is one of two U.S. states not bordered by another state, Hawaii being the other. Alaska has more coastline than all the other U.S. states combined.[5] It is the only non-contiguous U.S. state on continental North America; about 500 miles (800 km) of Canadian territory separate Alaska from Washington State. Alaska is thus an exclave of the United States, part of the continental U.S. but is not part of the contiguous U.S.[6] Juneau, Alaska's capital city, though located on the mainland of the North American continent, is inaccessible by land—no roads connect Juneau to the rest of the North American highway system.
The state is bordered by the Yukon Territory and British Columbia, Canada, to the east, the Gulf of Alaska and the Pacific Ocean to the south, the Bering Sea, Bering Strait, and Chukchi Sea to the west and the Beaufort Sea and the Arctic Ocean to the north.
Alaska is the largest state in the United States in land area at
570,380 square miles (1,477,277 km²), more than twice as large as Texas, the next largest state. It is larger than all but 18 sovereign nations.
Alaska is larger than the combined area of either:
or
- 23 smallest U.S. States and Districts: District of Columbia, Rhode Island, Delaware, Connecticut, Hawaii, New Jersey, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Vermont, Maryland, West Virginia, South Carolina, Maine, Indiana, Kentucky, Tennessee, Virginia, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Mississippi, Louisiana, Alabama, North Carolina
- Also, comparing with territory outside the United States, Alaska is larger than:
Sweden, Norway, Finland, Denmark, and the United Kingdom combined.
Near Little Port Walter in Southeast Alaska.
One scheme for describing the state's geography is by labeling the regions:
- South Central Alaska is the southern coastal region and contains most of the state's population. Anchorage and many growing towns, such as Eagle River, Palmer, and Wasilla, lie within this area. Petroleum industrial plants, transportation, tourism, and two military bases form the core of the economy here.
- The Alaska Panhandle, also known as Southeast Alaska, is home to many of Alaska's larger towns including the state capital Juneau, tidewater glaciers, the many islands and channels of the Alexander Archipelago and extensive forests. Tourism, fishing, forestry and state government anchor the economy.
- Southwest Alaska is largely coastal, bordered by both the Pacific Ocean and the Bering Sea.
It is sparsely populated, and unconnected to the road system, but very
important to the fishing industry. Half of all fish caught in the
western U.S. come from the Bering Sea, and Bristol Bay has the world's largest sockeye salmon fishery. Southwest Alaska includes Katmai and Lake Clark national parks as well as numerous wildlife refuges. The region comprises western Cook Inlet, Bristol Bay and its watersheds, the Alaska Peninsula and the Aleutian Islands. It is known for wet and stormy weather, tundra landscapes, and large populations of salmon, brown bears, caribou, birds, and marine mammals.
- The Alaska Interior is home to Fairbanks. The geography is marked by large braided rivers, such as the Yukon River and the Kuskokwim River, as well as Arctic tundra lands and shorelines.
- The Alaskan Bush is the remote, less crowded part of the state, encompassing 380 native villages and small towns such as Nome, Bethel, Kotzebue and, most famously, Barrow,
the northernmost town in the United States, as well as the northern
most town on the contiguous North American continent (cities in
Greenland, the Northwest Territories, and Nunavut that are farther
north are on islands)[citation needed].
The northeast corner of Alaska is covered by the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, which covers 19,049,236 acres (77,090 km²). Much of the northwest is covered by the larger National Petroleum Reserve–Alaska,
which covers around 23,000,000 acres (93,100 km²). The Arctic is
Alaska's most remote wilderness. A location in the National Petroleum
Reserve–Alaska is 120 miles (190 km) miles from any town or village,
the geographic point most remote from permanent habitation in the USA.
With its myriad islands, Alaska has nearly 34,000 miles (54,720 km) of tidal shoreline. The Aleutian Islands chain extends west from the southern tip of the Alaska Peninsula. Many active volcanoes are found in the Aleutians. Unimak Island, for example, is home to Mount Shishaldin which is a moderately active volcano that rises to 9,980 feet (3,042 m) above sea level. The chain of volcanoes extends to Mount Spurr, west of Anchorage on the mainland.
One of North America's largest tides occurs in Turnagain Arm,
just south of Anchorage - tidal differences can be more than 35 feet
(10.7 m). (Many sources say Turnagain has the second-greatest tides in
North America, but several areas in Canada have larger tides.[7])
Alaska has more than 3 million lakes [8][9] Marshlands and wetland permafrost cover 188,320 square miles (487,747 km²) (mostly in northern, western and southwest flatlands). Frozen water, in the form of glacier ice, covers some 16,000 square miles (41,440 km²) of land and 1,200 square miles (3,110 km²) of tidal zone. The Bering Glacier complex near the southeastern border with Yukon, Canada, covers 2,250 square miles (5,827 km²) alone.
The Aleutian Islands cross longitude
180°, so Alaska can be considered the easternmost state as well as the
westernmost. Alaska, and especially the Aleutians, are one of the extreme points of the United States. The International Date Line jogs west of 180° to keep the whole state, and thus the entire continental |
Classical
from 
