Alaska (
/əˈlæskə/ (help·info) , Russian: Аляска Alyaska ) is the largest state of the United States of America by area; it is situated in the northwest extremity of the North American continent, with Canada to the east, the Arctic Ocean to the north, and the Pacific Ocean to the west and south, with Russia further west across the Bering Strait. Approximately half of Alaska's 683,478 residents reside within the Anchorage metropolitan area. As of 2007, Alaska remains the least densely populated state.
The area that became Alaska was purchased from the Russian Empire after Western Union discontinued construction of its first electric telegraph line which ran from California, up the coast of North America, across the Bering Strait, continuing across Siberia to Moscow and into the European telegraph network. Despite $3 million in U.S. investment for the Russian-American telegraph expedition, work ceased upon the completion of the competing Transatlantic telegraph cable.
The U.S. realized the potential of continuing the line to Moscow and sent Secretary of State William H. Seward to negotiate with the Russian Ambassador to fund the remaining phases of the telegraph line. Russia did not see the potential in funding, so Alaska was offered in exchange for the value of the Russian-American telegraph. The Russians feared that if they did not sell the territories of Russian America, they would be taken from them by the westward expansion of the British in Canada.
The U.S. Senate approved the purchase of Alaska from the Russian Empire on March 30, 1867, for $7.2 million at two cents per acre, about five cents per hectare. 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 used only 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." It is also known as Alyeska, the "great land," an Aleut word derived from the same root.
Geography
Main article: Geography of AlaskaAlaska has more coastline than all the other U.S. states combined. It is the only non-contiguous U.S. state on continental North America; about 500 miles (800 km) of British Columbia (Canada) separate Alaska from Washington state. Alaska is thus an exclave of the United States. It is technically part of the continental U.S., but is often not included in colloquial use; Alaska is not part of the contiguous U.S., often called "the Lower 48." The capital city, Juneau, is situated on the mainland of the North American continent, but is not connected by road 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 Arctic Ocean to the north. Alaska's territorial waters touch Russia's territorial waters in the Bering Strait, as the Russian and Alaskan islands are only 3 miles (4.8 km) apart. As it extends into the eastern hemisphere, it is technically both the western-most and eastern-most state in the United States, as well as also being the northern-most.
Alaska is the largest state in the United States in land area at 586,412 square miles (1,518,800 km 2 ), much larger than Texas, the next largest state. Geologists have identified Alaska as part of Wrangellia, a large region consisting of multiple states and Canadian provinces in the Pacific Northwest which is actively undergoing continent building. Alaska is larger than all but 18 sovereign countries.
Counting territorial waters, Alaska is larger than the combined area of the next three largest states: Texas, California, and Montana, or as large as 21% of the area of contiguous United States. It is also larger than the combined area of the 22 smallest U.S. states.
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 U.S. come from the Bering Sea, and Bristol Bay has the world's largest sockeye salmon fishery. Southwest Alaska includes Katmai and Kodiak Island and the Alaska Maritime National Wildlife Refuge. 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 bear, caribou, birds, and marine mammals. Except for the very northernmost part of the Alaska Peninsula, southwestern Alaska is almost treeless, due to the almost constant high winds.
- 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 Alaska Interior is also home to North America's highest peak at Mount McKinley (also known as Denali).
- 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).
The northeast corner of Alaska is dominated by the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, which covers 19,049,236 acres (77,090 km 2 ). Much of the northwest is covered by the larger National Petroleum Reserve–Alaska, which covers around 23,000,000 acres (93,100 km 2 ). The Arctic is Alaska's most remote wilderness. A location in the National Petroleum Reserve–Alaska is 120 miles (190 km) from any town or village, the geographic point most remote from permanent habitation on the US mainland. The Rat Islands region in the Western Aleutians is more than 200 miles (320 km) from the tiny settlements of Attu and Adak, and may be the loneliest place in the United States. In 1971 the U.S. exploded an atomic bomb underground here, on Amchitka Island.
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 an occasionally smoldering volcano that rises to 10,000 feet (3,000 m) above the North Pacific. It is the most perfect volcanic cone on Earth, even more symmetrical than Japan's Mount Fuji. The chain of volcanoes extends to Mount Spurr, west of Anchorage on the mainland. Alaska has the most volcanoes of any of the fifty US states.
One of the world'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.)
Alaska has more than three million lakes. Marshlands and wetland permafrost cover 188,320 square miles (487,747 km 2 ) (mostly in northern, western and southwest flatlands). Frozen water, in the form of glacier ice, covers some 16,000 square miles (41,440 km 2 ) of land and 1,200 square miles (3,110 km 2 ) of tidal zone. The Bering Glacier complex near the southeastern border with Yukon, Canada, covers 2,250 square miles (5,827 km 2 ) alone. With over 100,000 of them, Alaska has half of the world's glaciers.
The International Date Line jogs west of 180° to keep the whole state, and thus the entire North American co
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