Alaska lies at the extreme northwest of the North American continent and is the largest peninsula in the Western Hemisphere. Its 591,004 square miles (1,530,700 square km) include some 15,000 square miles (38,800 square km) of fjords and inlets, and its three faces to the sea have about 34,000 miles (54,400 km) of indented tidal coastline and 6,600 total miles (10,600 km) of coast fronting the open sea.
Alaska borders the Arctic Ocean on the north and northwest, the Bering Strait and the Bering Sea on the west, and the Pacific Ocean and Gulf of Alaska on the
south. The land boundaries on the east cut across some 1,150 miles (1,850 km) of high mountains to separate the state from the Canadian Yukon Territory and British Columbia province. Rimming the state on the south is one of the Earth's most active earthquake belts. In the Alaska Range north of Anchorage, Mount McKinley (Denali), at 20,320 feet (6,194 metres), is the highest peak in North America. The capital is Juneau, which lies in the southeast in the panhandle region.
When it became the 49th state on January 3, 1959, Alaska increased the nation's size by nearly 20 percent. The new area included vast stretches of unexplored land and untapped resources. At the time Secretary of State William H. Seward negotiated its purchase from Russia in 1867, however, Alaska was known as Seward's Folly. Its settlement and exploitation have been hindered by its distance from the rest of the nation and by geographic and climatic impediments to travel and communications; Alaska continues to be the country's last frontier. More than half of the state's inhabitants live in the Greater Anchorage area.
The question of development versus preservation has been heightened by commercial and ecological uses of land: the Alaska Highway gas-pipeline project, native Alaskans' land claims, noncommercial whaling by native peoples, and related matters. The conflicts between conservationists and petroleum companies over the Trans-Alaska Pipeline, which runs from the oil-rich North Slope on the Arctic Ocean to Valdez in the south, was a continuation of the century-long effort to find a balance between conservation and development in this enormous land.
The immense area of Alaska has a great variety of physical characteristics. Nearly one-third of the state lies within the Arctic Circle and has perennially frozen ground (permafrost) and treeless tundra. The southern coast and the panhandle at sea level are fully temperate regions. In these latter and in the adjoining Canadian areas, however, lies the world's largest expanse of glacial ice outside Greenland and Antarctica. Off the extreme western end of the Seward Peninsula, Little Diomede Island, part of Alaska, lies in the Bering Strait only 2.5 miles (4 km) from Russian-owned Big Diomede Island; both countries have shown a tacit tolerance of unintentional airspace violations, which are common in bad weather.
Alaska comprises nine distinct physiographic and environmental regions. Much of the mainland panhandle region, a narrow strip of land 25 to 50 miles (40 to 80 km) wide lying east and south of the St. Elias Mountains, is composed of the Boundary Ranges. There are several large icefields, and the peaks include Mount St. Elias (18,009 feet [5,490 metres]), from
whose summit the Alaska-Yukon border swings due north. The western extension of this mountain chain is the Chugach Range, a giant arc at the northernmost edge of the Gulf of Alaska. Many remote valleys and high ridges are still unexplored, and the relief and glaciation inhibit exploitation. The coast is characterized by frequent and intense oceanic storm systems that have produced dense rain forests on the coastal mountain flanks. In the valleys, rivers are subject to devastating annual floods often associated with excessive snowmelt and glacial meltwaters.
The region of the south coastal archipelago and the Gulf of Alaska islands includes the Alexander Archipelago in the panhandle region, with 1,100 islands, plus Kodiak Island and its satellites south of Cook Inlet. These islands, extensions of the southern region, are lower, less rugged, and less glaciated. All receive heavy rain and are affected by waters warmed by the Kuroshio Current.
Anchorage Winter Sunrise of the Chugach Mountain Range, a giant arc at the northernmost edge of the Gulf of Alaska. Photo by: Robert M. Braley Jr.
The Aleutian region includes the narrow Alaska Peninsula, which forms the south shoreline of Bristol Bay, and the 1,100-mile- (1,770-km-) long Aleutian chain that separates the North Pacific from the Bering Sea. The chain includes 14 large islands, 55 significant but smaller ones, and numerous islets. The largest are Unimak, Unalaska, and Umnak. On the occasionally clear summer days, active volcanoes and such glacier-covered peaks as symmetrical Shishaldin Volcano (9,372 feet [2,857 metres]) on Unimak can be seen. Such magnificent views represent the Aleutians at their scenic best. Usually, however, the weather is wet and stormy, the winds horizontal and cutting, and the fog all-pervading.
The broad Alaska Range region connects the Aleutian Range across the southern third of mainland Alaska to the Wrangell Mountains, which abut the vast complex of the St. Elias Mountains. The Wrangell Mountains have large active volcanoes and high valley glaciers. The flanks of this subarctic range are largely tundra-covered.
The low-lying interior basin region between the Alaska Range in the north and the Chugach–Wrangell–St. Elias mountains to the south and east enjoys a relatively temperate climate. The lower valleys contain good farmlands, and it is there that most of the people of Alaska live.
A major mountain chain running west to east in the area north of the central plains and extending from the sea nearly to the Yukon border, the Brooks Range gradually slopes northward to a narrow linear coastal plain bordering the Arctic Ocean and westward to lower hills north of Kotzebue Sound. There are a few high Arctic glaciers, and the area is semiarid. The lower flanks and valleys are tundra-covered, with permafrost features.
The coastal lowland north of the Brooks Range, sometimes called the North Slope, is the home of great herds of caribou. The environment is truly polar, with the sea waters along the coast frozen eight months of the year and the ground permanently frozen except for a thin zone of summer melting. It is treeless, and, in summer, grasses and Arctic alpine flowers abound. The National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska is located in the western sector, while the Prudhoe Bay oil fields and part of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge occupy the eastern sector.
The islands of the Bering Sea represent a small but unique Arctic maritime environment, typified by St. Lawrence, Nunivak, and St. Matthew islands and the Pribilof group. These tundra-covered islands are surrounded by sea ice in winter and serve as protected refuges for the world's largest herds of fur-bearing seals and sea otters, as well as sea lions and walrus. A large herd of domesticated reindeer is tended by Eskimos on Nunivak Island.
