A state in northwestern North America; the 49th state admitted to the union; Also called: Last Frontier.
Largest state of the US, on the northwest extremity of North America, separated from the lower 48 states by British Columbia; nicknamed Last Frontier; territories include Aleutian Islands.
total area 1,530,700 sq km/591,004 sq mi.
land area 1,478,457 sq km/570,833 sq mi.
capital Juneau.
towns and cities Anchorage, Fairbanks, Fort Yukon, Holy Cross, Nome.
physical much of Alaska is mountainous and includes Mount McKinley (Denali), 6,194 m/20,322 ft, the highest peak in North America, surrounded by Denali national park. Caribou (descended from 2,000 reindeer imported from Siberia in early 1900s) thrive in the Arctic tundra, and elsewhere there are extensive forests.
features Denali national park (6 million acres) with Mount McKinley and Wonder Lake; Glacier Bay national park, a marine reserve; Katmai national park, a volcanic area, including Mount Katmai, which erupted 1912 and formed the Valley of Ten Thousand Smokes; the Arctic Wildlife Range; Tongass national forest; Wrangell-St Alias national park, the largest in the US; Kenai Fjords national park; Little Diomede Island, only 4 km/2.5 mi from the Russian Big Diomede; hot springs N of Fairbanks; Aleutian Islands; Yukon River; remains of Russian settlements, including the Russian Bishops House in Sitka, capital of Russian America until the sale of Alaska 1867; Ketchikan, with collections of totem poles at Totem Bight state historical park and Totem Heritage Center; gold rush town of Nome; Skagway historic district; St Nicholas Russian Orthodox Church (1894), Juneau; Alaska State Museum, Juneau; Anchorage Museum of History and Art; Living Museum of the Arctic, Kotzebue; University of Alaska near Fairbanks.
products oil, natural gas, coal, copper, iron, gold, tin, fur, salmon fisheries and canneries, lumber.
; including 9% Native Americans, Aleuts, and Inuits.
history various groups of Indians crossed the Bering land bridge 60,00015,000 years ago; the Eskimo began to settle the Arctic coast from Siberia about 2000 BC; the Aleuts settled the Aleutian archipelago about 1000 BC. The first European to visit Alaska was Vitus Bering 1741. Alaska was a Russian colony from 1744 until purchased by the US 1867 for $7,200,000; gold was discovered five years later. It became a state 1959.
A Congressional act 1980 gave environmental protection to 42 million ha/104 million acres. Valuable mineral resources have been exploited from 1968, especially in the Prudhoe Bay area to the SE of Point Barrow. An oil pipeline (1977) runs from Prudhoe Bay to the port of Valdez. Oil spill from a tanker in Prince William Sound caused great environmental damage 1989. Under construction is an underground natural-gas pipeline to Chicago and San Francisco.
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