General Facts About Alaska



  • Outsiders first discovered Alaska in 1741 when Danish explorer Vitus Jonassen Bering sighted it on a voyage from Siberia.

  • Russian whalers and fur traders on Kodiak Island established the first settlement in Alaska in 1784.

  • In 1867 United States Secretary of State William H. Seward offered Russia $7,200,000, or two cents per acre, for Alaska.

  • On October 18, 1867 Alaska officially became the property of the United States. Many Americans called the purchase "Seward's Folly."

  • Alaska officially became the 49th state on January 3, 1959.

  • Joe Juneau's 1880 discovery of gold ushered in the gold rush era.

  • The discovery of gold in the Yukon began a gold rush in 1898. Later gold was discovered at Nome and Fairbanks.

  • Juneau is the only capital city in the United States accessible only by boat or plane.

  • The state's largest city is Anchorage; the second largest is Fairbanks.

  • Nearly one-third of Alaska lies within the Arctic Circle.

  • Alaska is a geographical marvel. Alaska boasts the northernmost (Point Barrow), the easternmost (Pochnoi Point on Semisopochnoi Island in the Aleutians), and the westernmost (Amatignak Island in the Aleutians) points in the United States.

  • When a scale map of Alaska is superimposed on a map of the 48 lower states, Alaska extends from coast to coast.


  • Alaska is the United State's largest state and is over twice the size of Texas. Measuring from north to south the state is approximately 1,400 miles long and measuring from east to west it is 2,700 miles wide. Alaska is 586,400 square miles. The state of Rhode Island could fit into Alaska 425 times. Alaska is larger than the next four largest states combined!

  • The state boasts the lowest population density in the nation.

  • One half of Alaska's population lives in the Anchorage area.

  • The native peoples of Alaska include Aleuts, Inupiat Eskimos, Yupik Eskimos, and the Athapaskan, Tlingit, Haida, and Tsimshian tribes. The term Alaska native refers to Alaska's original inhabitants including Aleut, Eskimo and Indian groups

  • There are more private airplane pilots per capita in Alaska than in any other state.

  • Alaska is less than 3 miles from Russia! This is the distance between Big and Little Diomede Island. The rest of Alaska is 55 miles east of Russia.

  • Alaska is the only state to have coastlines on three different seas; the Arctic Ocean, Pacific Ocean and Bering Sea.

  • Alaska has 6,640 miles of coastline and, including islands, has 33,904 miles of shoreline. Alaska has more coastline than the rest of the United States combined!

  • The Yukon River, almost 2,000 miles long, is the third longest river in the U.S.

  • There are more than 3,000 rivers in Alaska and over 3 million lakes. The largest, Lake Iliamna, encompasses over 1,000 square miles. Becharof - 458 square miles Teshekpuk - 315 square miles Naknek - 242 square miles

  • In 1943 Japan invaded the Aleutian Islands, which started the One Thousand Mile War, the first battle fought on American soil since the Civil War.

  • Agattu, Attu, and Kiska are the only parts of North America occupied by Japanese troops during World War II.