Largest in area of the United States but third smallest (exceeding only Vermont and Wyoming) in population, occupying the northwest extremity of the North American continent, separated from the contiguous United States by western Canada. It is bordered by the Yukon Territory and British Columbia, the Gulf of Alaska, Pacific Ocean, Bering Sea, Bering Strait, Chukchi Sea, Beaufort Sea, and the Arctic Ocean.
Area: 656,424 sq mi (1,700,135 sq km), including 86,051 sq mi (222,871 sq km) of water surface.
Population: (2000) 628,932, a 14% increase since the 1990 census.
Capitol: Juneau
Largest city: Anchorage
Motto: North to the Future
State bird: Willow Ptarmigan
State flower: Forget-Me-Not
State tree: Sitka Spruce
Nearly one fifth the size of the rest of the United States, Alaska is, at the tip of the Seward Peninsula in the northwest, only a few miles from the Russian Far East; the two are separated by the narrow Bering Strait. The Seward Peninsula, primarily tundra covered, is sparsely inhabited. The Bering Strait widens in the north to the Chukchi Sea, which slices into Alaska with Kotzebue Sound; in the south the strait widens to the Bering Sea, which cuts into Alaska with Norton Sound and Bristol Bay.
Alaska has very little agriculture, ranking last in the nation in number of farms and value of farm products. The state's best arable land is in its southcentral region, in the Matanuska-Susitna Valley, north of Anchorage, and the Tanana Valley (around Fairbanks). The state's most valuable farm commodities are greenhouse and dairy products and potatoes. 
Alaska leads the nation in the value of its commercial fishing salmon, crab, shrimp, halibut, herring, and cod. Anchorage and Dutch Harbor are major fishing ports, and the freezing and canning of fish dominates the food-processing industry, the state's largest manufacturing enterprise. Lumbering and related industries are of great importance, although disputes over logging in the state's great national forests are ongoing. Mining, principally of petroleum and natural gas, is the state's most valuable industry. Gold, which led to settlement at the end of the 19th century, is no longer mined in quantity. Fur-trapping, Alaska's oldest industry, endures; pelts are obtained from a great variety of animals.
*Information from Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition