Encyclopedia
Alaska is a
U.S. state, located on the
northwest tier of
North America. It is by far the largest state in
area, but one of the
least populated. It is the 49th state, having been admitted to the Union on January 3, 1959. The name "Alaska" is most likely derived from the Aleut
Alyeska, meaning "great country", "mainland" or "great land".
Geography
Alaska is one of the two U.S. states not bordered by another state,
Hawaii being the other. It is the only non-contiguous state in
North America; about 500 miles of
Canadian territory separate Alaska from Washington. 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 mainland state whose capital city is accessible only via ship or
air. No
roads connect Juneau to the rest of the state.
It is bordered by
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
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 , over twice as large as
Texas, the next largest state. If a map of Alaska were upon a map of the 48 contiguous states, Alaska would overlap
Texas,
Oklahoma,
Kansas,
New Mexico and
Colorado, and 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.
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 capitol 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 .
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 .
Alaska is home to 3.5 million
lakes of 20 acres or larger.
Marshlands and wetland
permafrost cover 188,320 square miles
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.
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 decentralisation — 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. Anchorage, uniquely, 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 and municipality .
See also:History
Alaska was first inhabited by humans who came across the
Bering Land Bridge. Eventually, Alaska became populated by the Inupiaq,
Inuit and Yupik
Eskimos,
Aleuts, and a variety of
Native American groups. Most, if not all, of the pre-Columbian population of the Americas probably took this route and 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. Alaska became a Russian colony in 1744, but the first Russian settlement, Nikolaevsk on
Kodiak Island, was founded only in 1784 by
Grigory Shelikhov. The Russian-American Company hunted
sea otters for their fur. The colony was never very profitable, because of the costs of transportation. By today the only Russian settlement in Alaska is Nikolayevsk on
Kenai Peninsula, enpopulated by
old believers in 1968.
Spaniards explored the coast and made some settlements during the 18th century. Remains of this early period are Spanish names such Cordova and Valdez.
The news of the British North America Act, 1867, was nervously received in Washington, DC. It would create, on July 1, 1867, "one dominion under the name of Canada", and this led to expressions of "grave misgivings on the establishment of a monarchial state to the north" in what Canadians then called "the republic to the south".
U.S. Secretary of State William Seward thus urged, and the
United States Senate thus approved, the treaty authorizing the
purchase of Alaska from Imperial
Russia for US$7,200,000 on April 9, 1867. The United States took possession and the American flag was raised over Alaska on October 18, which is commemorated as Alaska Day.
Russia still used the
Julian Calendar in 1867, and the world had not yet been divided into standard time zones; thus, there was no international date line, and the day began in the morning instead of starting at midnight. So, while the American day now ends with sunset in western Alaska, the Russian day then started with sunrise in "eastern" Alaska. Thus, Friday, October 6, 1867, the day before the physical transfer of ownership, was followed by Friday, October 18, 1867—which was Saturday, October 7, 1867 in Russia. The change in date was due to America bringing the
Gregorian Calendar to Alaska, while the lack of change in
day resulted from Alaska's shift from being the starting point of the Russian day to being the ending point of the American day.
The purchase was unpopular in the United States, where it 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.
Supposedly, the first American administrator of Alaska was
Polish immigrant Wlodzmierz Krzyzanowski. However, the
Anchorage Daily News is a daily newspaper [i] based in Anchorage, Alaska [i], in the United States [i] ...
was unable to find any conclusive information to support or disprove this claim.
Upon purchase, the area was called the Department of Alaska. Between 1884 and 1912 it was called the District of Alaska. Alaska was granted territorial status in 1912.
President
Dwight D. Eisenhower signed the Alaska Statehood Act on July 7, 1958, and Alaska formally became a state on January 3, 1959.
Alaska suffered one of the worst
earthquakes in recorded history on
Good Friday 1964 .
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." In March 2005, the fund's value was over $30 billion.
Prior to 1983, the state lay across four different
time zones—Pacific Standard Time in the southeast panhandle, a small area of Yukon Standard Time around
Yakutat, Alaska–Hawaii Standard Time in the
Anchorage and
Fairbanks vicinity, with the
Nome area and most of the
Aleutian Islands observing Bering Standard Time . In 1983 the number of time zones was reduced to two, with the entire mainland plus the inner Aleutian Islands going to UTC -9 hours , and the remaining Aleutian Islands were slotted into the UTC -10 hours zone, which was then renamed Hawaii–Aleutian Standard Time.
Over the years various
vessels have been named USS
Alaska, in honor of the state.
During
World War II three of the outer Aleutian Islands—
Attu, Agattu and
Kiska—were occupied by
Japanese troops. It was the only territory within the current borders of the United States to have land occupied during the war.
Demographics
As of 2005, Alaska has an estimated population of 663,661, which is an increase of 5,906, or 0.9%, from the prior year and an increase of 36,730, or 5.9%, since the year 2000. This includes a natural increase since the last census of 36,590 people , and an increase due to net migration of 1,181 people into the state. Immigration from outside the United States resulted in a net increase of 5,800 people, and migration within the country produced a net loss of 4,619 people.
With a population of 626,932, according to the , Alaska is ranked 48th out of the 50 States. But ranked by population density, Alaska is the least densely populated at 1.1 people per square mile , with the next nearest ranking state, Wyoming, at 5.1 per square mile, and the most densely populated, New Jersey, at 1,134.4 per square mile.
For purposes of the federal census, the state is divided into artificial divisions defined geographically by the
United States Census Bureau for statistical purposes only.
Race and ancestry
The largest ancestry groups in the state are:
German , Alaska Native or American Indian ,
Irish , British ,
American , and
Norwegian . Alaska has the largest percentage of American Indians of any state.
The vast, sparsely populated regions of northern and western Alaska are primarily inhabited by Alaska Natives, who are also numerous in the southeast. Anchorage, Fairbanks, and other parts of south-central and southeast Alaska have many whites of northern and western European ancestry. The Wrangell-Petersburg area has many residents of Scandinavian ancestry and the Aleutians contain a large
Filipino population. Most of the state's black population lives in Anchorage. Fairbanks also has a sizeable black population as well.
As of 2000, 85.7% of Alaska residents age 5 and older speak only
English at home and 5.2% speak
Native American languages.
Spanish speakers make up 2.9% of the population, followed by
Tagalog speakers at 1.5% and
Korean at 0.8%.
Languages
More than 90 languages are spoken in Alaska, including 20 which are indigenous to Alaska. The indigenous languages, known locally as Native languages, belong to two major language families.
- Aleut
- Eskimo family
- Central Alaskan Yup'ik
- Siberian Yupik
- Alutiiq
- Sirenikski
- Naukan
- Inupiaq
- Athabaksan-Eyak-Tlingit family
- Tlingit
- Eyak
- Ahtna Athabascan
- Dena'ina Athabascan
- Deg Xinag Athabascan
- Upper Kuskokwim Athabascan
- Holikachuk Athabascan
- Koyukon Athabascan
- Gwich’in Athabascan
- Lower Tanana Athabascan
- Tanacross Athabascan
- Upper Tanana Athabascan
- Haida
- Tsimshian
As the homeland of two of North America's major language families,
Eskimo-Aleut and
Athabaskan, Alaska has been described as the crossroads of the continents, providing evidence for the recent settlement of North America via the
Bering land bridge.
Religion
Notable is Alaska's relatively large
Eastern Orthodox Christian population, a result of early
Russian colonization and missionary work among indigenous Alaskans.
Economy
The state's 2005 total gross state product was $39.9 billion. Its per-capita GSP for 2005 was $60,079, 3rd in the nation. Alaska's main export is seafood. Agriculture represents only a fraction of the Alaska economy. Agricultural production is primarily for consumption within the state and includes nursery stock, dairy products, vegetables, and livestock. 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. Military bases are a significant component of the economy in both Fairbanks and Anchorage. Its industrial outputs are crude petroleum, natural gas, coal, gold, precious metals, zinc and other mining, seafood processing, timber and wood products. There is also a growing service and
tourism sector. Tourists have contributed to the economy by supporting local lodging.
Alaska's economy is heavily dependent on increasingly expensive
diesel fuel for
heating,
transportation,
electric power and light. Though
wind and
hydroelectric power are abundant and underutilized, proposals for state-wide energy systems were judged uneconomical due to low fuel prices, long distances and low population. The cost of a gallon of gas in Alaska today is usually $0.30-$0.60 higher than the national average.
The cost of goods in Alaska has long been higher than in the contiguous 48 states. This has changed for the most part in
Anchorage and to a lesser extent in
Fairbanks, where the cost of living has dropped somewhat in the past five years. Housing costs within the city of Fairbanks have remained almost unchanged . Outside the city limits they are significantly lower .
Federal Government employees, namely United States Postal Service workers, receive a Cost Of Living Allowance usually set at 25% of base pay, owing to the fact that while the cost of living has gone down, it is still one of the highest in the country.
The introduction of big-box stores in Anchorage, Fairbanks , and Juneau also did much to lower prices. However, rural Alaska suffers from extremely high prices for food and consumer goods, compared to the rest of the country due to the relatively limited transportation infrastructure. Many rural residents come in to these cities and purchase food and goods in bulk from warehouse clubs like
Costco and
Sam's Club. Some have embraced the free shipping offers of some online retailers to purchase items much more cheaply than they could in their own communities, if they are available at all.
Alaska is one of only six states with no state sales tax and one of seven states that do not levy an individual
income tax. To finance state government operations, Alaska depends primarily on
petroleum revenues. The Department of Revenue Tax Division reports regularly on the state's revenue sources. The Department also issues an annual overview of its operations, including new state laws that directly affect the tax division.
While Alaska has no state sales tax, 89 municipalities collect a local sales tax, with a range of between 1 percent and 7 percent. Typical sales tax rates are 3 to 5 percent. Other types of local taxes levied include raw fish taxes,
hotel, motel, and B'n'B "bed" taxes, severance taxes,
liquor and
tobacco taxes, gaming taxes, tire taxes and fuel transfer taxes. A percentage of revenue collected from certain state taxes and license fees is shared with municipalities in Alaska.
Property taxes are relatively low, with only 25 of 161 incorporated municipalities or boroughs in the state assessing property taxes. Fairbanks has one of the highest property taxes in the state as no sales or income taxes are assessed in the Fairbanks North Star Borough . A sales tax for the FNSB has been voted on many times, but has yet to be approved, leading law makers to increase taxes dramatically on other goods such as
liquor and
tobacco. The average per capita property tax paid in all municipalities, excluding oil and gas properties, was US$999 .
Transportation
Alaska is arguably the least-connected state in terms of road transportation. The state's road system covers a relatively small area of the state, linking the central population centers and the
Alaska Highway, the principal route out of the state through
Canada. The state capital, Juneau, is not accessible by road, which has spurred several debates over the decades about moving the capital to a city on the road system. One unique feature of the road system is the
Anton Anderson Memorial Tunnel, which links the
Seward Highway south of Anchorage with the relatively isolated community of <
