The name Alaska is derived from the Aleut alaxsxa or alaxsxix, both meaning “mainland” or “great land.”
Indeed, Alaska has an immense area and a great variety of physical characteristics. Aside from its mainland peninsula, the state includes about 15,000 square miles (38,800 square km) of fjords and inlets and about 34,000 miles (54,400 km) of indented tidal coastline.
In addition, most of the continental shelf of the United States lies along Alaska's coast. In the Alaska Range north of Anchorage is Mount McKinley, 20,320 feet (6,194 meters) high—the highest peak in North America.
Nearly one-third of the state lies within the Arctic Circle, and about four-fifths of Alaska is underlain by permafrost (permanently frozen sediment and rock). Tundra—the vast, treeless Arctic plains—makes up about one-half of the state.
The southern coast and the panhandle at sea level are fully temperate regions. In these and in the adjoining Canadian areas, however, lies the world's largest expanse of glacial ice outside Greenland and Antarctica.
Rimming the state on the south is one of Earth's most active earthquake belts, the circum-Pacific seismic belt. Alaska has more than 130 active volcanoes, most of which are on the Aleutian Islands and the adjacent Alaska Peninsula. The Alaska earthquake of 1964 was one of the most powerful earthquakes ever recorded in the United States.
The Arctic coastal plain north of the Brooks Range, often referred to as the North Slope, has a truly polar environment, 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 Colville River flows through the center of this region and lies along the eastern edge of the National Petroleum Reserve–Alaska, originally set aside for petroleum development. The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge lies to the east of the Colville. Prudhoe Bay, located between these reserves, is a center of oil-drilling activities in the region.
The difficulty of finding a balance between conservation and development in an enormous land has been ongoing since the beginning of the 20th century. Alaska's residents and the state and federal governments have had to make delicate decisions on such major issues as a natural gas pipeline project, Native Alaskans' land claims, the creation of national parks and wildlife refuges, noncommercial whaling by native peoples, and related matters.
One of the major conflicts occurred in the late 1960s and early 1970s between conservationists and petroleum companies over the proposed Trans-Alaska Pipeline, which now runs from the oil-rich North Slope on the Arctic Ocean to Valdez, in the south.
Total area: 589,194 square miles (1,526,005 square km)
Population: (2008) 686,293.