• Kodiak
• Matsu
• Y alaska

Alaska

Alaska

(In Detail) (Full size)
State nickname: "The Last Frontier"
Other U.S. States
Capital	Juneau
Largest City	Anchorage
Governor	Frank Murkowski
Area  - Total  - Land  - Water  - % water	Ranked 1st 1,717,854 km² 1,481,347 km² 236,507 km² 13.77%
Population  - Total (2000)  - Density	Ranked 48th 626,932 0.4/km²
Admittance into Union  - Order  - Date	49th January 3, 1959
Time zone	Alaska: UTC-9/-8 Aleutian: UTC-10/-9 All but the Aleutian Islands west of 169­° West is in Alaska time zone
Latitude Longitude	54°40'N to 71°50\'N 130°W to 173°E
Width Length Elevation  -Highest  -Mean  -Lowest	1,300 km 2380 km   6,194 m 3,060 m 0 m
ISO 3166-2:	US-AK

On January 3, 1959, Alaska was admitted to the United States as the 49th state. The population of the state is 626,932, as of 2000. The name "Alaska" is most likely derived from the Aleut word for "great country" or "mainland."

Table of contents

1 History 2 Law and government 3 Geography 4 Boroughs and census areas 5 Economy 6 Notable Alaskans 6.1 Fictional 7 Novels about Alaska 8 Important cities and towns 9 Education 9.2 Colleges and universities 10 External links

History

Alaska was probably first settled by peoples who came there across the Bering Land Bridge, including Inuit and a variety of Native American groups. Most if not all of the pre-Columbian population of the Americas took this route, but continued further south and east.

The first written accounts indicate that the first Europeans to reach Alaska came from Russia. Vitus Bering sailed east and saw Mt. St. Elias. The Russian-American Company hunted otters for their fur. The colony was never very profitable, because of the costs of transportation.

At the instigation of U.S. Secretary of State William Seward, the United States Senate approved the purchase of Alaska from Russia for $7,200,000 on April 9th, 1867, and the United States flag was raised on October 18th of that same year (now called Alaska Day). The purchase was not popular in the continental United States, where Alaska became known as "Seward's Folly" or "Seward's Icebox". Alaska celebrates the purchase each year on the last Monday of March, calling it Seward's Day.

President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed the Alaska Statehood Act into United States law on July 7, 1958 which paved the way for Alaska's admission into the Union.

In 1976, the people of Alaska amended the state's constitution, establishing the Alaska Permanent Fund. The fund invests a portion of the state's mineral revenue, including revenue from the Trans-Alaskan Pipeline System, to benefit all generations of Alaskans. As of June 2003, the fund's value was over $24 billion.

Over the years various vessels have been named the USS Alaska, in honor of the state.

Law and government

The capital of Alaska is Juneau and the current governor of Alaska is Frank H. Murkowski (Republican). Alaska's two U.S. senators are Lisa Murkowski (Republican) and Ted Stevens (Republican).

Geography

Alaska is the only state that is both in North America and not part of the 48 contiguous states. Alaska is the largest state in the United States in terms of land area, 615,230 square miles (1,593 km²). If you superimposed Alaska on the Lower 48, Alaska would stretch from Minnesota to Texas, and from Georgia to California.

One scheme for describing the state's geography is by labeling the regions:

• South Central Alaska is the southern coastal region with towns, cities, and petroleum industrial plants;
• the Alaska Panhandle is home to towns, tidewater glaciers and extensive forests;
• the Alaska Interior has big rivers, such as the Yukon River and the Kuskokwim River, as well as Arctic tundra lands and shorelines; and
• the Alaskan Bush is the remote, uncrowded part of the state.

Much of Alaska is managed by the federal government as national forests, national parks, and national wildlife refuges. There are places in Alaska that are general public lands (BLM land) but they are arguably more spectacular than many national parks in the Lower 48. Many of Alaska's state parks would be national parks if they were in other states.

Much of Alaska is managed by corporations called ANCSA corporations, of which there are thirteen regional ones and dozens of local ones.

See: List of Alaska rivers

The Last Frontier
State Bird:	Willow Ptarmigan
State Mammal:	Moose
State Capital:	Juneau
State Flower:	Forget Me Not (Myosotis alpestris)
State Motto:	"North To The Future"
State Song:	"Alaska's Flag"
State Tree:	Sitka Spruce

Boroughs and census areas

Alaska has no counties in the sense used in the rest of the country; however, the state is divided into 27 census areas and boroughs.

The difference between boroughs and census areas is that boroughs have an organized area-wide government, while census areas are artificial divisions defined by the United States Census Bureau.

Economy

The state's 1999 total gross state product was $26 billion, placing it 46^th in the nation. Its per-capita Income for 2000 was $30,064, 15^th in the nation. Alaska's main agriculture output is seafood, although nursery stock, dairy products, vegetables, and livestock are produced and used internally. Manufacturing is limited, with most foodstuffs and general goods imported from elsewhere. Employment is primarily in government and industries such as natural resource extraction, shipping, and transportation. There is also a small but growing service and tourism sector. Its industrial outputs are crude petroleum, natural gas, coal, gold, precious metals, zinc and other mining, seafood processing, timber and wood products.

Alaska has various transportation options. Some of Alaska is connected by roads (and sometimes a tunnel) to the highways of Canada and the rest of the United States. These places are "on the road system". Along the Pacific Ocean, many places have freight and passenger service from ocean-going ships. Most places have air service, ranging from jets on tarmac to floatplanes on lakes.

Notable Alaskans

The National Statuary Hall of the United States of America is part of the Capitol in Washington DC. Each state has selected one or two distinguished citizens and provided statues. Alaska's are of its first two senators:

• E.L. "Bob" Bartlett (1904–1968) was the territorial delegate to the US Congress from 1944 to 1958, and was elected as the first senior US senator in 1958 and re-elected in 1964. There are streets, buildings, and even the first state ferry, named for him.

• Ernest Gruening (1886–1974) was appointed Governor of the Territory of Alaska in 1939, and served in that position for fourteen years. He was elected to the United States Senate in 1958 and re-elected in 1962.

Fictional

• William Riker was born in Valdez, Alaska.

The T. Coraghessan Boyle novel Drop City (2003, ISBN 0670031720) tells the story of a group of Hippies who relocate to Alaska.

Marcia Simpson (d. 2003) has written three books which describe what it's like to live in a small coastal community in Alaska: Rogue's Yarn (2003, ISBN 0425191982), Crow in Stolen Colors (2000, ISBN 1890208361) and Sound Tracks (2001, ISBN 1890208728).

James Michener wrote Alaska.

Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer is the true story of Christopher McCandless, a college graduate and top student, who donated his entire $24,000 savings account to charity and moved into the Alaskan wilderness. 1997, ISBN 0385486804

Important cities and towns

Alaska's most populous city is Anchorage, home of 260,283 people, 225,744 of whom live in the urbanized area. It ranks a distant third in the List of U.S. states by area. Sitka ranks as the America's largest city by area, followed closely by Juneau. Jacksonville, Florida is the largest city by area in the other 49 states and the fourth largest in the entire country.

Anchorage

Fairbanks College Eagle River (northeast section of Anchorage) Juneau Wasilla Kodiak Ketchikan

towns < 10,000 population Sitka Palmer Bethel Barrow Kenai Soldotna Unalaska Kotzebue Nome Petersburg Homer Dillingham Valdez Seward

Education

Colleges and universities

• University of Alaska System
  • University of Alaska Anchorage
  • University of Alaska Fairbanks
  • University of Alaska Southeast
• Alaska Bible College
• Alaska Pacific University
• Charter College
• Sheldon Jackson College

• State of Alaska website
• Russian-American Company "Sealskin" Banknotes

Regions of Alaska
Alaskan Bush | Interior | North Slope | Panhandle | South Central | Tanana Valley
Largest Cities
Anchorage | Barrow | Bethel | Fairbanks | Homer | Juneau | Kenai | Ketchikan | Kodiak | Kotzebue | Nome | Palmer | Petersburg | Seward | Sitka | Unalaska | Valdez | Wasilla
Boroughs and Census Areas
Aleutians East | Aleutians West | Anchorage | Bethel | Bristol Bay | Denali | Dillingham | Source | Copyright				Webmasters: Add your website here: Readers: Edit | Discuss Listings University of Alaska at Anchorage, Kodiak Campus Located in Kodiak, Alaska. http://www.koc.alaska.edu/ University of Alaska at Anchorage Matanuska-Susitna Campus - Palmer, Alaska http://www.matsu.alaska.edu University of Alaska at Anchorage, Kenai Campus Located in Soldotna, Alaska. http://www.kpc.alaska.edu/