Alaska Borough Map
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Alaska Borough Maps
Alaska’s county system is a whole different ballgame compared to the Lower 48. Instead of counties, the Last Frontier is divided into 19 boroughs and 11 census areas (as shown below).
Alaska Boroughs
As I mentioned before, Alaska has 19 organized boroughs and 11 census areas. There is another type of boundary in Alaska called an “Unorganized Borough”. This is basically government-speak for “figure it out yourselves.” The Unorganized Borough are those areas that are not contained in any of its 19 organized boroughs.
The Municipality of Anchorage takes the cake as the most populous borough. No surprise there as it’s home to Alaska’s biggest city, where nearly half the state’s population lives. Imagine that: almost one in every two Alaskans crowded into this one area. On the flip side, we’ve got the Yakutat City and Borough. It has fewer than 700 folks spread over an area the size of Delaware. Talk about breathing room.
When it comes to size, these boroughs make Lower 48 counties look like postage stamps. The North Slope Borough is a monster, covering over 94,000 square miles. That’s bigger than the entire state of Minnesota. It stretches from the Brooks Range to the Arctic Ocean. The tiniest borough? Skagway, a narrow strip of land nestled in the Inside Passage. But what it lacks in size, it makes up for in history as a gateway to the Klondike Gold Rush.
The borough system in Alaska is pretty young, all things considered. It only came into being in 1961, when the state constitution called for maximum local self-government. Before that? It was pretty much the Wild West in terms of local organization. The first organized borough, Bristol Bay, didn’t pop up until 1962. It’s a system born out of necessity and practicality in a state with vast distances and sparse population.
Whether you’re in the fishing villages of the Aleutians or the oil fields of the North Slope, these boroughs are the backdrop to Alaska’s wild and wonderful story. Living in these places isn’t for the faint of heart. In some boroughs, you’re more likely to run into a moose than your neighbor. And forget popping over to the next borough for a cup of sugar because in Alaska, that might mean flying an airplane.