Alaska Vacation Guide System

Alaska Fun Facts

Capital: Juneau

State abbreviation/Postal code: Alaska/AK

Governor: Sean Parnell, R (to Dec. 2014)

Lieut. Governor: Mead Treadwell, R (to Dec. 2014)

Senators: Mark Begich, D (to Jan. 2015); Lisa Murkowski, R (to Jan. 2017)

U.S. Representatives: 1

Historical biographies of Congressional members

Atty. General: John J. Burns (apptd. by gov.)

Organized as territory: 1912

Entered Union (rank): Jan. 3, 1959 (49)

Constitution ratified: April 24, 1956

Motto: North to the Future

State symbols:

flower	forget-me-not (1949)
tree	sitka spruce (1962)
bird	willow ptarmigan (1955)
fish	king salmon (1962)
song	“Alaska's Flag” (1955)
gem	jade (1968)
marine mammal	bowhead whale (1983)
fossil	woolly mammoth (1986)
mineral	gold (1968)
sport	dog mushing (1972)

Nickname: The state is commonly called “The Last Frontier” or “Land of the Midnight Sun”

Origin of name: Corruption of Aleut word meaning “great land” or “that which the sea breaks against”

10 largest cities (2005 est.): Anchorage, 275,043; Fairbanks, 31,324; Juneau, 30,987; Sitka, 8,986; Wasilla, 8,471; Kenai, 7,464; Ketchikan, 7,410; Palmer, 6,920; Kodiak, 6,273; Bethel, 6,262;

Land area: 571,951 sq mi. (1,4 81,353 sq km)

Geographic center: 60 mi. NW of Mt. McKinley

Number of boroughs (counties): 27

Largest borough by population and area: Anchorage, 275,043 (2005); Yukon-Koyukuk, 145,900 sq mi.

State parks: more than 100 (3.5 million acres)

Residents: Alaskan

2005 resident population est.: 663,661

2000 resident census population (rank): 626,932 (48). Male: 324,112 (51.7%); Female: 302,820 (48.3%). White: 434,534 (69.3%); Black: 21,787 (3.5%); American Indian and Alaska Native: 98,043 (15.6%); Asian: 25,116 (4.0%); Other race: 9,997 (1.6%); Two or more races: 34,146 (5.4%); Hispanic/Latino: 25,852 (4.1%). 2000 percent population 18 and over: 69.6; 65 and over: 5.7; median age: 32.4.

Alaska is located in the extreme northwest portion of North America. It is by far the largest U.S. state in area. It is also one of the wealthiest and most racially diverse states.

Alaska is one of the two U.S. States not bordered by another state, Hawaii being the other.

Alaska is the largest state in the United States in terms of land area (it is larger in area than all but 18 of the world's nations) at 570,380 square miles, over twice as large as Texas, the next largest state.

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 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 and extensive forests. Tourism, fishing, forestry and state government anchor the economy.
• 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.

The northeast corner of Alaska is covered by the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, which covers 19,049,236 acres. Much of the northwest is covered by the larger National Petroleum Reserve–Alaska, which covers around 23 million acres.

The Arctic is Alaska's most remote wilderness. A location in the National Petroleum Reserve–Alaska is 120 miles from any town or village, the geographic point most remote from permanent habitation in the USA.

With its numerous islands, Alaska has nearly 34,000 miles of tidal shoreline. The island chain extending west from the southern tip of the Alaska Peninsula is called the Aleutian Islands. Many active volcanoes are found in the Aleutians. For example, Unimak Island is home to Mount Shishaldin, a moderately active volcano that rises to 9,980 ft 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. (Many sources say Turnagain has the second-greatest tides in North America, but it has since been shown that several areas in Canada have larger tides, according to an Anchorage Daily News article dated 6/23/03.

Alaska is home to 3.5 million lakes of 20 acres or larger. Marshlands and wetland permafrost cover 188,320 square miles, mostly in northern, western and southwest flatlands).

Frozen water, in the form of glacier ice, covers some 16,000 square miles of land and 1,200 square miles of tidal zone. The Bering Glacier complex near the southeastern border with Yukon, Canada, covers 2,250 square miles alone.

No roads lead to Glacier National park and it is most easily reached by a variety of National Park Service ferries or by air travel to the small community of Gustavus. Despite the lack of roads, the park averages 380,000 visitors per year.

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 United States, within the same legal day.

According to an October 1998 report by the United States Bureau of Land Management, approximately 65% of Alaska is owned and managed by the U.S. federal government as national forests, national parks, and national wildlife refuges. Of these, the Bureau of Land Management manages 87 million acres, or 23.8% of the state. The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is managed by the United States Fish and Wildlife Service.

Kenai Fjords National Park is a United States National Park on the Kenai Peninsula in southcentral Alaska near the town of Seward. The park contains the Harding Icefield, one of the largest ice fields in the United States.

The Bering Land Bridge that connected asia with North America more than 13,000 years ago during the Pleistocene ice age. The majority of this land bridge, once thousands of miles wide, now lies beneath the waters of the Chukchi and Bering Seas.

Denali National Park and Preserve is located in Interior Alaska and contains Denali, the tallest mountain in North America.

Of the remaining land area, the State of Alaska owns 24.5%; another 10% is managed by thirteen regional and dozens of local Native corporations created under the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act. Various private interests own the remaining land, totaling less than 1%.

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