Alaska

Alaska entered the Union on January 3, 1959, becoming the nation’s forty-ninth state. Nicknamed the Last Frontier, it is the largest state by area and the northernmost and westernmost state in the country. Juneau is the capital, Anchorage is the largest city by population, and Kodiak, established as a Russian settlement in 1792, is Alaska’s oldest permanent European settlement. Its geography includes Arctic tundra, mountain ranges, glaciers, forests, thousands of islands, and coastlines along the Arctic and Pacific oceans.

Alaska Native peoples inhabited the region for thousands of years before Russian explorers and fur traders arrived. The United States purchased Alaska from Russia for $7.2 million in 1867, an acquisition initially criticized as “Seward’s Folly.” The Klondike and Alaska gold rushes brought prospectors and new settlements to the region during the late nineteenth century. Alaska’s strategic importance increased during World War II, when Japanese forces occupied islands in the Aleutian chain. Oil, commercial fishing, mining, military installations, tourism, and the preservation of vast areas of wilderness have continued to shape the state’s development.