Alaska Studies Center - Alaska Trivia - Alaskan educational materials

Alaska Studies Center P.O. Box 1125 Homer, Alaska 99603 Fax: 907.235.8757	A Wizard Works Catalog
Learning Materials for Schools and Home Schoolers

The answers to the Trivia Quiz on the home page are: 1 D, 2 B, 3 D

Alaska Trivia

Superlatives on Alaska, the 49th State

570,833 square miles (2.3 x the size of Texas)

Largest cities (in land area) Sitka: 4530 square miles; Juneau: 3248 square miles; Anchorage: 1940 square miles

Most inaccessible capital city — Juneau (There is no road to there from anywhere else.)

Longest state border that's a straight line — 647 miles

Most coastline — 34,000 miles

Most land per person — 580 acres

Highest peaks Mt. McKinley's south peak: 20,320 feet above sea level Mt. McKinley's north peak: 19,470 feet above sea level (Fifteen more of the top twenty in North America are in Alaska.)

Highest volcano — Mt. Wrangell: 14,163 feet above sea level

Northernmost point — Point Barrow: latitude 71° N

Westernmost point — Cape Wrangell

Largest glacier — Bering Glacier: 2250 square miles

Largest fjord — Lynn Canal

Most national parks — eight

Heaviest recorded snowfall — 974.5 inches: Thompson Pass, 1952-1953

Highest recorded snow pack — 356 feet: Kenai Peninsula, 1976-1977

Lowest recorded temperature — -80° F: Prospect Creek, 1971

Most earthquakes — 1000 per year 3.5+ on the Richter scale

Biggest earthquake — 9.2 on the Richter scale: 27 March, 1964

Largest oilfield — Prudhoe Bay

Largest zinc mine — Red Dog

Covers about 1/5th of the area of the U.S.

More than 2,000 miles from tip of Aleutians to Southeast

More than 1,000 miles from Barrow to Ketchikan

Covers 4 times zones (but we only use 2 for practical reasons)

34,000 miles of coastline – more coastline than the rest of the U.S. put together

63% of the nation’s wetlands

1/2 the glaciers in the world, covering 29,000 square miles or about 5% of the state

More than 3 million lakes

More than 3,000 rivers

Tongass National Forest is said to hold more organic matter per acre than any other rain forest, including tropical jungles.

May be the only state in the Union whose indigenous people never lost their land through war or treaty.

May be the only state in the Union whose indigenous people were, at least in part, officially compensated by the government for land lost and ensured of continued use of much traditionally used land.