Anchorage (Denaʼina: Dgheyay Kaq'; Dgheyaytnu), officially the Municipality of Anchorage, is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Alaska. With a population of 291,247 at the 2020 census, it contains nearly 40 percent of the state's population. The Anchorage metropolitan area, which includes Anchorage and the neighboring Matanuska-Susitna Borough, had a population of 398,328 in 2020, accounting for more than half the state's population. At 1,706 sq mi (4,420 km2) of land area, the city is the fourth-largest by area in the U.S.
Anchorage is in Southcentral Alaska, at the terminus of the Cook Inlet, on a peninsula formed by the Knik Arm to the north and the Turnagain Arm to the south. First settled as a tent city near the mouth of Ship Creek in 1915 when construction on the Alaska Railroad began, Anchorage was incorporated as a city in November 1920. In September 1975, the City of Anchorage merged with the Greater Anchorage Area Borough, creating the Municipality of Anchorage. The municipal city limits span 1,961.1 sq mi (5,079.2 km2), encompassing the urban core, a joint military base, several outlying communities, and almost all of Chugach State Park. Because of this, less than 10 percent of the Municipality (or Muni) is populated, with the highest concentration of people in the 260 square kilometres (100 square miles) area that makes up the city proper, on a promontory at the headwaters of the inlet, commonly called Anchorage, the City of Anchorage, or the Anchorage Bowl.
Due to its location, Anchorage is almost equidistant from New York City, Tokyo, and Murmansk, Russia (straight over the North Pole). Anchorage lies within 10 hours by air of nearly 90 percent of the inhabited global north. For this reason, Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport is a common refueling stop for international cargo flights and home to a major FedEx hub, which the company calls a "critical part" of its global network of services.
Anchorage has won the All-America City Award four times: in 1956, 1965, 1984–85, and 2002, from the National Civic League. Kiplinger has named it the United States' most tax-friendly city.
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 William Bligh to scout the north arm, where he met with the Dena'ina Natives of the Eklutna area, who told him the name of the Knik Arm and that it was not the Northwest Passage, but rather an outlet for two rivers (the Knik and Matanuska Rivers). Cook then sailed south to scout the other arm, and in a bad mood after running the Resolution aground on a sandbar on his way back out of the shallow waters, called it "River Turnagain", having found no sign of the passage there either.
In the 19th century, Russian presence in South-Central Alaska was well-established. The Russians placed trading posts along Cook Inlet, such as the Shelikhov-Golikov Company's post at Niteh on the Palmer Flats (between the Knik and Matanuska Rivers), which in turn created small agricultural communities in Ninilchik, Seldovia, and Eklutna. The Russians also introduced diseases such as smallpox that had devastating effects on the local Native population, which plummeted by half just 10 years after the first census.
In 1867, U.S. Secretary of State William H. Seward brokered a deal to purchase Alaska from Imperial Russia for $7.2 million, or about two cents an acre ($132.5 million in 2024 dollars). His political rivals lampooned the deal as "Seward's folly", "Seward's icebox" and "Walrussia". In 1888, gold was discovered along Turnagain Arm just south of modern-day Anchorage, leading to a new influx of prospectors, and small towns such as Spenard, Hope, Rainbow, Bird, Indian, and Girdwood began to spring up.
Alaska became an organized incorporated United States territory in 1912. Anchorage, unlike every other large town in Alaska south of the Brooks Range, was neither a fishing nor mining camp. The area surrounding Anchorage lacks significant economic metal ores. A number of Dena'ina settlements existed along Knik Arm for years. By 1911 the families of J. D. "Bud" Whitney and Jim St. Clair lived at the mouth of Ship Creek and were joined there by a young forest ranger, Jack Brown, and his bride, Nellie, in 1912.
The city grew from its happenstance choice as a site for railroad construction to begin in 1914. The waters near Ship Creek were deep enough for barges and small ships to dock, and under the direction of Frederick Mears, it became a railroad-construction port for the Alaska Engineering Commission. The area near the mouth of Ship Creek, where the railroad headquarters was, quickly became a tent city. Anchorage formed at a time when proponents of Prohibition were gaining traction, and as part of an effort to stem the flow of the alcohol trade, at the direction of President Woodrow Wilson and with the symmetry of the US Army, a town site was mapped out on higher ground to the south of the tent city, with the condition that a person's land could be repossessed if caught breaking the alcohol laws. Anchorage has been noted in the years since for its order and rigidity compared with other Alaska town sites. In 1915, territorial governor John Franklin Alexander Strong encouraged residents to change the city's name to one that had "more significance and local associations". In the summer of that year, residents held a vote to change the city's name; a plurality favored the name "Alaska City", but the territorial government ultimately declined to change the city's name. Anchorage was incorporated on November 23, 1920.
Construction of the Alaska Railroad continued until its completion in 1923. The city's economy in the 1920s and 1930s centered on the railroad. Colonel Otto F. Ohlson, the Swedish-born general manager of the railroad for nearly two decades, became a symbol of residents' contempt due to the firm control he maintained over the railroad's affairs, which by extension became control over economic and other aspects of life in Alaska.
Between the 1930s and the 1950s, the city experienced massive growth as air transportation and the military became increasingly important. Aviation operations in Anchorage commenced along the firebreak south of town (today's Delaney Park Strip), which residents also used as a golf course. An increase in air traffic led to clearing of a site directly east of town site boundaries starting in 1929; this became Merrill Field, which served as Anchorage's primary airport during the 1930s and 1940s, until Anchorage International Airport superseded it in 1951. Merrill Field still sees a significant amount of general aviation traffic.
Elmendorf Air Force Base and the United States Army's Fort Richardson were constructed in the 1940s, and served as the city's primary economic engine until the 1968 Prudhoe Bay discovery shifted the thrust of the economy toward the oil industry.
The Good Friday earthquake of March 27, 1964, hit Anchorage hard at a magnitude of 9.2, killing 115 people and causing $116 million in damages ($750 million in 2024 dollars). The earth-shaking event lasted nearly five minutes; most structures that failed remained intact for the first few minutes then failed with repeated flexing. It was the world's fourth-largest earthquake in recorded history. Broadcaster Genie Chance has been credited with holding Anchorage together, as she immediately rushed to the Anchorage Public Safety Building and stayed on the KENI airwaves for almost 24 continuous hours. Chance, effectively designated as the public safety officer by the city's police chief, was instrumental in Anchorage's relief and recovery efforts as she coordinated response efforts, connected urgent needs with available resources, disseminated information of available shelters and food sources, and passed messages among loved ones over the air, reuniting families. Because the city and surrounding suburban area was built on top ground consisting of glacial silt, the prolonged shaking from the earthquake caused soil liquefaction, leading to massive cracks in roadways and collapse of large swaths of land. One of Anchorage's most affected residential areas, the Turnagain neighborhood, saw dozens of homes originally at 250 to 300 feet above sea level sink to sea level. Rebuilding and recovery dominated the remainder of the 1960s.
In 1968, ARCO discovered oil in Prudhoe Bay on the Alaska North Slope, and the resulting oil boom spurred further growth in Anchorage. In 1975, the City of Anchorage and the Greater Anchorage Area Borough (which includes Eagle River, Girdwood, Glen Alps, and several other communities) merged into the geographically larger Municipality of Anchorage The city continued to grow in the 1980s, and capital projects and an aggressive beautification campaign took place.
Several attempts have been made to move Alaska's state capital from Juneau to Anchorage, or to a site closer to Anchorage. The motivation is straightforward: the "railbelt" between Anchorage and Fairbanks contains most of Alaska's population. Robert Atwood, owner of the Anchorage Times and a tireless booster for the city, championed the move. Alaskans rejected attempts to move the capital in 1960 and 1962, but in 1974, as Alaska's center of population moved away from Southeast Alaska and to the railbelt, voters approved it. Communities such as Fairbanks and much of rural Alaska opposed moving the capital to Anchorage for fear of concentrating more power in the state's largest city. As a result, in 1976, voters approved a plan to build a new capital city near Willow, about 70 mi (110 km) north of Anchorage. In the 1978 election, opponents to the move reacted by campaigning to defeat a nearly $1 billion bond issue to fund construction of the new capitol building and related facilities ($4 billion in 2024 dollars). Later attempts to move the capital or the legislature to Wasilla, north of Anchorage, also failed. Anchorage has over twice as many state employees as Juneau, and is to a considerable extent the center of Alaska's state and federal government activity.
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 Forest, a national protected area, extends into the southern part of the municipality, near Girdwood and Portage.
Cityscape
Wildlife
A diverse wildlife population exists within urban Anchorage and the surrounding area. Approximately 250 black bears and 60 grizzly bears live in the area. Bears are regularly sighted within the city. Moose are also a common sight; in the Anchorage Bowl, there is a summer population of approximately 250 moose, increasing to as many as 1,000 during the winter. They are a hazard to drivers, with over 100 moose killed by cars each year. Two people were stomped to death, in 1993 and 1995, in Anchorage. Cross-country skiers and dog mushers using city trails have been charged by moose on numerous occasions; the Alaska Department of Fish and Game has to kill some individual aggressive moose in the city every year. Dall sheep are often viewed quite close to the road at Windy Point.
In addition, approximately thirty Interior Alaskan wolves reside in the Anchorage area. In 2007, several dogs were killed by timber wolves while on walks with their owners. There are also beaver dams in local creeks and lakes, and sightings of foxes and kits in parking lots close to wooded areas in the spring are common. Along the Seward Highway headed toward Kenai, there are common sightings of beluga whales in the Turnagain Arm. Lynxes are occasionally sighted in Anchorage as well. Within the Municipality there are also a number of streams that host salmon runs. Fishing for salmon at Ship Creek next to downtown is popular in the summer.
Climate
Anchorage has a subarctic climate (Köppen climate classification: Dsc on the borderline of Dsb, Trewartha Eolo bordering on Dclo), with strong maritime influences that lead to a relatively moderate climate, in contrast to the much more continental Fairbanks. Most of its precipitation falls in late summer. Average daytime summer temperatures range from approximately 55 to 78 °F (13 to 26 °C); average daytime winter temperatures are about 5 to 30 °F (−15.0 to −1.1 °C). Anchorage has a frost-free growing season that averages slightly over 101 days. According to local folklore, when a native plant called fireweed goes to seed after a full bloom, the first snowfall of winter is 6 weeks away.
Average January low and high temperatures at Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport (ANC) are 11 to 23 °F (−12 to −5 °C) with an average winter snowfall of 75.5 in (192 cm). The 2011–2012 winter had 134.5 in (341.6 cm), which made it the snowiest winter on record, topping the 1954–1955 winter with 132.8 in (337.3 cm). The coldest temperature ever recorded at the original weather station at Merrill Field on the East end of 5th Avenue was −38 °F (−38.9 °C) on February 3, 1947.
Summers are mild (although cool compared to the contiguous US and even interior Alaska), and it can rain frequently, although not abundantly. Average July low and high temperatures are 52 to 66 °F (11 to 19 °C) and the highest reading ever recorded was 90 °F (32.2 °C) on July 4, 2019. The average annual precipitation at the airport is 16.63 in (422 mm). Anchorage's latitude causes summer days to be very long and winter daylight hours to be very short. The city is often cloudy during the winter, which further decreases the amount of sunlight experienced by residents.
The coldest daily maximum recorded in Anchorage was −19 °F (−28 °C) on January 28, 1989, while the coldest daily maximum on average between 1991 and 2020 was 1 °F (−17 °C). Warm summer nights do not occur even with the bayside location and extensive daylight; the mildest night on record was 63 °F (17 °C) on July 10, 2005, August 13, 2019, and August 14, 2019. The mean temperature is 59 °F (15 °C).
Due to its proximity to active volcanoes, ash hazards are a significant, though infrequent, occurrence. The most recent notable volcanic activity centered on the multiple eruptions of Mount Redoubt during March–April 2009, resulting in a 25,000 ft (7,600 m) high ash cloud as well as ash accumulation throughout the Cook Inlet region. Previously, the most active recent event was an August 1992 eruption of Mount Spurr, which is 78 mi (126 km) west of the city. The eruption deposited about 3 mm (0.1 in) of volcanic ash on the city. The clean-up of ash resulted in excessive demands for water and caused major problems for the Anchorage Water and Wastewater Utility.
The average temperature of the sea ranges from 35.8 °F (2.1 °C) in February to 53.1 °F (11.7 °C) in August.
Demographics
Anchorage first appeared on the 1920 U.S. census. It incorporated that same year, and in 1975 it was consolidated with its borough.Population figures from 1970 and before are only of the City of Anchorage, and do not include the Greater Anchorage Area Borough. The combined population of the city and borough in 1970 was 126,385.
2020 census
At the 2020 census, Anchorage had 291,247 people. Racial makeup was 63.8% White, 10.0% Asian, 9.1% American Indian or Alaska Native, 6.0% African American, and 8.4% from two or more races; 9.4% of the people were Hispanic or Latino. The age distribution was 6.9% of the population under the age of 5; 24.0% under 18; 64.3% aged 18–64; and 11.7% aged 65 and up. 50.9% of residents were male; 49.1% were female. Veterans were 9.3% of all residents and 10.9% of residents born outside the United States. There were 119,276 housing units and 106,567 households; the average household size was 2.69 persons. In 17.8% of households, a language other than English was spoken at home. 95.9% of households had a computer; 90.0% of households had broadband Internet connections. 93.9% of the population had a high school diploma or higher, and 36.1% had a Bachelor's degree or higher. 8.4% of the population under the age of 65 had a disability with 11.1% of the same age group having no health insurance. 68.5% of the population were in the civilian labor force. The median household income was $84,928 and the per capita income from May 2019 – April 2020 was $41,415. The poverty rate was 9.5%.
The most reported detailed ancestries in 2020 were:
German (16.4%)
English (14.8%)
Irish (13.5%)
Filipino (5.9%)
Mexican (4.4%)
Scottish (4.2%)
African American (3.9%)
Samoan (3.2%)
Italian (3.2%)
Norwegian (2.9%)
2010 census
According to the 2010 census, Anchorage had a population of 291,826 and its racial and ethnic composition was as follows:
White: 66.0% (62.6% non-Hispanic)
Two or more races: 8.1%
Asian: 8.1% (3.3% Filipino, 1.2% Korean, 1.1% Hmong, 0.41% Chinese, 0.35% Thai)
American Indian and Alaska Natives: 7.9% (1.4% Iñupiat, 1.1% Yup'ik, 0.8% Aleut)
Black or African American: 5.6%
Other race: 2.3%
Native Hawaiians and Other Pacific Islanders: 2.0% (1.4% Samoan)
Hispanic or Latino (of any race): 7.6% (4.4% Mexican, 1.2% Puerto Rican, 0.71% Dominican)
According to the 2010 census, the largest national ancestry groups were as follows: 17.3% German, 10.8% Irish, 9.1% English, 6.9% Scandinavian (3.6% Norwegian, 2.2% Swedish, 0.6% Danish) and 5.6% French/French Canadian ancestry.