Anchorage

Sister cities

• Harbin
• Tromsø Municipality
• Incheon
• Darwin
• Magadan
• Whitby
• Chitose

History

Archaeological evidence discovered at Beluga Point just south of Anchorage, along the Turnagain Arm, suggests that habitation of the Cook Inlet began 5,000 years ago by a group of Alutiiq people who arrived by kayak. As this population moved on, they were followed by a second wave of Alutiiq occupation beginning roughly 4,000 years ago, followed by a third wave around 2,000 years ago. Around 500 AD the Chugach Alutiiq were displaced by the arrival of Dena'ina Athabaskans, who entered through the mountain passes. The Dena'ina had no fixed settlements, migrating throughout the area with the seasonal changes, fishing along coastal streams and rivers in the summer, hunting moose, mountain goats, and Dall sheep in early fall, and picking berries in late fall. They tended to winter near trading junctions along common travel routes, where they traded with other Dena'ina and Ahtna tribes from nearby areas. Captain James Cook was among the first European explorers to map the Alaskan coastline, and many of the geographical features (mountains, islands, rivers, waterways, etc.) still bear the names he gave them. Cook was searching for the fabled Northwest Passage, a route that would provide a shorter means of reaching the Pacific from Europe than the difficult Northeast Passage around the north of Asia, or south around South America. On May 15, 1778, after enduring weeks of hard weather, Cook turned into an inlet between two landmarks he called Cape Douglas and Mount St. Augustine. He anchored his ship, HMS Resolution, at a place he called "Anchor Point" (later named "Anchorage" as another Anchor Point existed to the south near Homer, Alaska), near a creek he dubbed "Ship Creek" nestled between two large arms (waterways). Cook spent ten days exploring the inlet. He first sent…

Geography

Anchorage is in Southcentral Alaska. At 61 degrees north, it lies slightly farther north than Oslo, Stockholm, Helsinki and Saint Petersburg, but not as far north as Reykjavík or Murmansk. It is northeast of the Alaska Peninsula, Kodiak Island, and Cook Inlet, due north of the Kenai Peninsula, northwest of Prince William Sound and the Alaska Panhandle, and nearly due south of Denali. The city is on a strip of coastal lowland and extends up the lower alpine slopes of the Chugach Mountains. Point Campbell, the westernmost point of Anchorage on the mainland, juts out into Cook Inlet near its northern end, at which point it splits into two arms. To the south is Turnagain Arm, a fjord that has some of the world's highest tides. Knik Arm, another tidal inlet, lies to the west and north. The Chugach Mountains on the east form a boundary to development, but not to the city limits, which encompass part of the wild alpine territory of Chugach State Park. The city's sea coast consists mostly of treacherous mudflats. Newcomers and tourists are warned not to walk in this area because of extreme tidal changes and the very fine glacial silt. Unwary victims have walked onto the solid seeming silt revealed when the tide is out and have become stuck in the mud. The two recorded instances of this occurred in 1961 and 1988. According to the United States Census Bureau, the municipality has an area of 1,961.1 square miles (5,079.2 km2); 1,697.2 square miles (4,395.8 km2) of which is land and 263.9 square miles (683.4 km2) of it is water. The total area is 13.5% water. Boroughs and census areas next to the Municipality of Anchorage are Matanuska-Susitna Borough to the north, Kenai Peninsula Borough to the south and Chugach Census Area to the east. The Chugach National…

Race & ethnicity

Most-observed species

• American Robin

  Turdus migratorius Linnaeus, 1766 · Aves
  974
• Dark-eyed Junco

  Junco hyemalis (Linnaeus, 1758) · Aves
  956
• Black-capped Chickadee

  Poecile atricapillus (Linnaeus, 1766) · Aves
  887
• Common Raven

  Corvus corax Linnaeus, 1758 · Aves
  845
• Yellow-rumped Warbler

  Setophaga coronata (Linnaeus, 1766) · Aves
  803
• Black-billed Magpie

  Pica hudsonia (Sabine, 1823) · Aves
  712
• Orange-crowned Warbler

  Leiothlypis celata (Say, 1822) · Aves
  556
• Golden-crowned Sparrow

  Zonotrichia atricapilla (J.F.Gmelin, 1789) · Aves
  535

Most recent

• M 3.6 — 2026-10-16
  2 km NW of Knik, Alaska
• M 2.8 — 2026-10-16
  24 km N of Sutton-Alpine, Alaska
• M 2.5 — 2026-10-16
  19 km ENE of Girdwood, Alaska
• M 3.2 — 2026-10-14
  8 km SSE of Tyonek, Alaska
• M 2.8 — 2026-10-09
  6 km WSW of Willow, Alaska
• M 3.3 — 2026-10-07
  22 km SW of Hope, Alaska