Facts About Alaska

• Alaska contains 586,412 square miles. It is one-fifth the size of the contiguous United States; 550 times larger than the state of Rhode Island; larger than the three largest states in the union combined.

• Alaska was purchased from Russia on March 30, 1867 for $7,200,000. Alaska became the 49th state on January 3, 1959. This calculates to less than 2 cents an acre.

• Alaska has about six times as many pilots per capita and 16 times as many aircraft per capita as the rest of the United States.

• Alaska is ranked fourth in the nation in the level of incarceration per 100,000 population.

• There is no Cicely, Alaska (but there is a North Pole).

• Since the turn of the century, 25 percent of all earthquake energy released in the world has been released by earthquakes in Alaska.

• Farmers in the Matanuska Valley grow cabbages weighing more than 90 pounds.

• Alaska has over 12,000 miles of public roads.

• Approximately one half of the public roads are paved.

• Alaska's oil production is 25 percent of the total United States production.

• The Alaska State Park System, with more tha 3.5 million acres of land and water, and 100 park units, is the largest park system in the United States.

• Alaska's public television stations (in measured markets) consistently place first and second (KUAC-Fairbanks and KAKM-Anchorage trade place regularly) as the public stations with the highest per capita audiences in the nation.

• Since 1700, at least 41 different volcanoes have erupted in Alaska.

• The highest record temperature in Alaska is 100 degrees at Fort Yukon. Alaska and Hawaii hold the record for the lowest high temperature marks in the U.S. Both have 100 degree highs.

• The coldest temperature in Alaska was minus 80 at Prospect Creek, on January 23, 1971 (Hawaii does not share this record).

• Literally hundreds of millions of birds of more than 400 different species occur in Alaska.

• With 16,800,000 acres the Tongass National Forest is the largest national forest in the United States.

• The offical motto of the State of Alaska is "North to the Future".

• The offical state fossil is the Woolly Mammoth.

• Former Governor Walter J. Hickel was Kansas' Welterweight Golden Gloves boxing champion in 1938.