Alaska county map

Boroughs, not counties

When Alaska became a state in 1959 its constitution rejected the county system. Instead, local government is provided by boroughs, which are formed only where residents vote to organise one. Nineteen boroughs exist today. Four of them are unified home-rule municipalities where the city and borough are the same government: Anchorage, Juneau, Sitka and Wrangell. Others, such as the Fairbanks North Star Borough and the Kenai Peninsula Borough, contain several separate cities.

Everything else — more than half the land area of the state — is the Unorganized Borough, which has no borough government at all. Services there come directly from the state or from small city governments and tribal councils. Because the Census Bureau needs county-equivalent units for its statistics, it divides the Unorganized Borough into 11 census areas. These have no seat, no council and no boundaries anyone elected; in the table the largest community is listed instead of a seat.

Borough boundaries change more often than county lines elsewhere. The Petersburg Borough was organised in 2013 out of the former Petersburg Census Area, and in 2019 the old Valdez–Cordova Census Area was split into the Chugach Census Area and the Copper River Census Area. Older references may still list 29 units or the Wade Hampton Census Area, renamed Kusilvak in 2015.

All 30 boroughs and census areas of Alaska

Five facts about Alaska’s divisions

• Largest by area: the Yukon-Koyukuk Census Area in the Interior, about 147,000 square miles — larger than Montana and the largest county-equivalent in the United States. The North Slope Borough, at roughly 95,000 square miles, is the largest organised borough.
• Smallest by area: the Bristol Bay Borough around Naknek, about 500 square miles of land at the head of Bristol Bay, organised for the salmon fishery.
• Most populous: the Municipality of Anchorage, about 291,000 people in 2020 — roughly 40 per cent of the state. The Matanuska-Susitna Borough (Palmer, Wasilla) and the Fairbanks North Star Borough follow, each near 100,000.
• Least populous: the City and Borough of Yakutat, on the Gulf of Alaska coast, with about 660 people. The Bristol Bay Borough is next smallest.
• Oldest and newest: the first boroughs were organised in 1961–1964 (Anchorage, Fairbanks North Star, Kenai Peninsula, Kodiak Island, Matanuska-Susitna and others). The Petersburg Borough (2013) is the newest borough, and the Chugach and Copper River census areas (2019) are the newest units. Alaska has no independent cities in the Virginia sense, but its four unified city-boroughs are single governments.

Reading the map

The map opens with Alaska and Hawaii in view. Press Streets and zoom in to see borough lines. The organised boroughs cluster around Anchorage, the Kenai Peninsula, Fairbanks, the Panhandle and the resource districts of the North Slope and Northwest Arctic; the census areas fill the roadless Interior, the Yukon–Kuskokwim delta and the Seward Peninsula. The Aleutians West Census Area crosses the 180th meridian, so Alaska technically spans both hemispheres. Almost all of the state keeps Alaska Time; the Aleutian Islands west of 169°30′W, in the Aleutians West Census Area, use Hawaii–Aleutian Time.

Related maps

• Alaska map — borders, cities and geography.
• Blank Alaska map and printable Alaska map.
• Juneau, the capital, and Anchorage, the largest city.
• Nearest state county maps: Washington, Hawaii.
• Pacific states · the West · Alaska Time Zone · Hawaii–Aleutian Time Zone.
• Geography: state high points (Denali), national parks, US coastlines.
• All US county maps.