Alaska Boroughs Map: Click All 29 Boroughs

How many boroughs are in Alaska?

Alaska has 19 organized boroughs (including consolidated city-boroughs such as Juneau and Anchorage, which is called a municipality) plus census areas that cover the Unorganized Borough. This map shows 29 boroughs and census areas, using boundaries from before the 2019 Valdez-Cordova split; today there are 30.

Alaska has no counties. It has boroughs, and most of the state's land belongs to no borough at all. The Census Bureau divides that Unorganized Borough into census areas so it can count people, and treats boroughs and census areas as county equivalents. This map uses 2017 boundaries, so it still shows the Valdez-Cordova Census Area, which was split into the Chugach and Copper River census areas in 2019. Juneau, the capital, can't be reached by road from the rest of North America.

How Alaska's boroughs were formed

When Alaska became a state in 1959, it chose not to have counties. The state constitution created boroughs instead, and a 1961 law let regions organize them. Bristol Bay Borough became the first in 1962, and Petersburg Borough, formed in 2013, is the newest. The Census Bureau drew census areas across the Unorganized Borough so it could count people there, and it has redrawn them several times; the 2019 split of Valdez-Cordova is the most recent change.

Alaska regions and the boroughs in each

Learn Alaska by its big regions. The Arctic is the North Slope and Northwest Arctic boroughs along the top of the state. The Interior centers on the Fairbanks North Star Borough and the huge Yukon-Koyukuk Census Area. Southcentral holds most of the people: Anchorage, the Matanuska-Susitna Borough and the Kenai Peninsula Borough. Southwest Alaska runs out the Alaska Peninsula and the Aleutian Islands, and the Southeast panhandle is a chain of island and coastal boroughs from Yakutat down to Ketchikan Gateway.

Notable places on the Alaska borough map

Denali, the tallest mountain in North America at 20,310 feet, stands in Denali National Park in the Interior; since 2025 the federal government has again used the name Mount McKinley for the peak. Utqiagvik (formerly Barrow), the seat of the North Slope Borough, is the northernmost city in the United States. Kodiak Island has its own borough, home to Kodiak brown bears, and Juneau, the capital, can be reached only by plane or boat.

Alaska boroughs map: the biggest and smallest

Yukon-Koyukuk Census Area is the largest borough in Alaska, with 145,576 square miles of land, about 25% of the state. That's more land than 47 whole states, including Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas and others. Skagway Municipality is the smallest, at 434 square miles.

The smallest boroughs by land area are Skagway Municipality (434 sq mi), Bristol Bay Borough (482 sq mi) and Anchorage Municipality (1,707 sq mi).

Which boroughs in Alaska have the most people?

Anchorage Municipality has the most people, about 289,600 in the Census Bureau's July 2024 estimate, or 39% of everyone in Alaska. The three biggest boroughs together hold 68% of the state's 740,133 people. Yakutat City and Borough has the fewest, about 690.

The most crowded is Anchorage Municipality, with about 170 people per square mile. The emptiest is Yukon-Koyukuk Census Area, with less than one person per square mile. Comparing the two is a quick way to show children that a big borough on the map isn't always a big borough in people.

What borough is Juneau in?

Juneau, the capital of Alaska, is in Juneau City and Borough. Juneau City and Borough ranks 5th of 29 by population. Alaska is called the Last Frontier, and it became the 49th state in 1959.

Where Alaska's boroughs are

Alaska has no land border with another state, so its boroughs are framed by the ocean.

How Alaska's boroughs compare with other states

Alaska ranks 1st among the 50 states in land area and 48th in population. Its average borough covers about 19,690 square miles and holds about 25,522 people. Across the 50 states, the average county-level area covers about 1,139 square miles and holds about 109,381 people, so Alaska's boroughs are bigger than usual in size. Bigger boroughs mean fewer names to learn for a state this size.

Landmarks for learning the boroughs of Alaska

• The North Slope Borough covers the top of the state along the Arctic Ocean.
• Anchorage, the largest city, is its own municipality at the head of Cook Inlet.
• The long Southeast panhandle is a chain of small boroughs, including Juneau, Sitka and Ketchikan Gateway.
• The Aleutians East Borough and Aleutians West Census Area stretch out along the island chain to the west.

With 29 boroughs, you can take on the whole map at once in a Practice round. Then print the Alaska borough map worksheet to check that it sticks on paper.

All 29 Alaska boroughs

Every borough on the map, A to Z, with its land area and July 2024 population estimate.

Valdez-Cordova's numbers are the sum of the Chugach and Copper River census areas, which replaced it in 2019.

Alaska geography for homeschoolers

Pair this map with the West states and capitals quiz and the US states quiz. If you teach at home, see alaska homeschool laws, and check alaska homeschool allotment to see whether a program may help pay for Alaska history and geography curriculum. Each program decides what it covers.