| |
Note: Alaska and Hawaii are shown out of
position for reference only and are not to scale.
Blank
Alaska State Outline Map
Alaska is one of two U.S. States not bordered by
another state; Hawaii the
other. Alaska has more sea front than all of the
other US states combined. It is the only
non-contiguous state in
North America; about 500 miles (800 km) of
Canadian territory separate
Alaska from Washington State.
Alaska is thus an exclave of
the United States that is part of the
continental
U.S. but is not part of the contiguous U.S.
Alaska is also the only state whose
capital city is
accessible only via ship
or air. No roads connect
Juneau
to the rest of the state.
The state
is bordered by Yukon 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 terms of land area
at 570,380 square miles (1,477,300 km˛), over twice as large
as Texas, the next largest state. If
the state's westernmost point were superimposed on
San Francisco,
California, its easternmost point would be in
Jacksonville, Florida.
Alaska also has more coastline than
all of the contiguous U.S. combined. It is larger than all
but 18 sovereign nations.
One scheme
for describing the a 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.
-
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
incredibly 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.
The
northeast corner of Alaska is covered by the
Arctic National
Wildlife Refuge, which covers 19,049,236 acres
(77,090 km˛). Much of the
northwest is covered by the larger
National
Petroleum Reserve–Alaska, which covers around 23,000,000
acres (93,000 km˛). 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 in the USA.
With its
numerous islands, Alaska has nearly 34,000 miles (55,000 km)
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 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 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
(80,000 m˛) or larger
[3]. Marshlands
and wetland permafrost cover
188,320 square miles (487,750 km˛) (mostly in northern,
western and southwest flatlands). Frozen water, in the form
of glacier ice, covers some 16,000
square miles (41,000 km˛) of land and 1,200 square miles
(3,100 km˛) of tidal zone. The
Bering Glacier complex near the southeastern border with
Yukon, Canada,
covers 2,250 square miles (5,830 km˛) 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 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 (350,000 km˛), or
23.8% of the state. The
Arctic National
Wildlife Refuge is managed by the
United
States Fish and Wildlife Service.
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%.
Alaska is
administratively divided into "boroughs,"
as opposed to "counties." The function is the same, but
whereas some states use a three-tiered system of
decentralization — state/county/township — most of Alaska
only uses two tiers — state/borough. Owing to the state's
low population density, most of the land is located in the
Unorganized Borough
which, as the name implies, has no intermediate borough
government of its own, but is administered directly by the
state government. Currently (2000
census) 57.71 percent of Alaska's land area has this
status; however, its population comprises only 13.05 percent
of the state's total. For statistical purposes the
United States Census
Bureau divides this territory into
census areas. Anchorage merged
the city government with the Greater Anchorage Area Borough
in 1971 to form the Municipality of Anchorage, containing
the city proper, and the bedroom communities of Eagle River,
Chugiak, Peters Creek, Girdwood, Bird, and Indian.
Fairbanks, on the other hand, has a separate borough (the
Fairbanks North Star
Borough) and municipality (the City of Fairbanks)
Interactive Alaska State Map
Explore the state of Alaska with the dynamic map below. You can
zoom, pan and even get a satellite map view.
Move your cursor over the markers on the map to
learn more about Alaska.
State
Index |
Information
|
Fast Facts
|
Geography
|
Government
|
Economy |
History
|
|
