Anchorage Map
Anchorage (officially called the Municipality of Anchorage) is a consolidated city-borough in the southcentral part of the U.S. state of Alaska. It is the northernmost major city in the United States. With 291,826 municipal residents in 2010 (374,553 residents within the Metropolitan Statistical Area), it is Alaska's largest city and constitutes more than 40 percent of the state's total population; only New York has a higher percentage of residents who live in the state's largest city.
Anchorage has been named All-America City four times, in 1956, 1965, 1984/85, and 2002, by the National Civic League. It has also been named by Kiplinger as the most tax friendly city in the United States.
Russian presence in south central Alaska was well established in the 19th century. In 1867, U. S. Secretary of State William H. Seward brokered a deal to purchase Alaska from a debt-ridden Imperial Russia for $7.2 million (about two cents an acre). The deal was lampooned by political rivals as "Seward's folly", "Seward's icebox" and "Walrussia." By 1888, gold was discovered along Turnagain Arm.