Реферат: Alaska

is the only state that is both in North America and not part of the 48 contiguous states. Alaska is the largest state in the United States in terms of land area, 570,374 square miles (1,477,261 km). If you superimposed a map of Alaska on the Lower 48 states, Alaska would stretch from Minnesota to Texas and from Georgia to California.
One scheme for describing the state's geography is by labeling the regions:
- South Central Alaska is the southern coastal region with towns, cities, and petroleum industrial plants;
- The Alaska Panhandle, also known as Southeast Alaska, is home to towns, tidewater glaciers and extensive forests;
- the Alaska Interior has big rivers, such as the Yukon River and the Kuskokwim River, as well as Arctic tundra lands and shorelines; and
- The Alaskan Bush is the remote, uncrowned part of the state.
Alaska, with its numerous islands, has nearly 34,000 miles (54,700 km) of tidal shoreline. The island chain extending west from the southern tip of Alaska is called the Aleutian Islands. Many active volcanoes are found in the Aleutians.
Alaska is the easternmost state in the Union. The Aleutian Islands actually cross longitude 180°.
Alaska's most populous city is Anchorage, home of 260,284 people, 225,744 of whom live in the urbanized area. It ranks a distant third in the List of U.S. cities by area. Sitka ranks as the America's largest city by area, followed closely by Junea.

Government.

Much of Alaska is managed by the federal government as national forests, national parks, and national wildlife refuges. There are places in Alaska that are general public lands (BLM land) but they are arguably more spectacular than many national parks in the Lower 48. Many of Alaska's state parks would be national parks if they were in other states.
Much of Alaska is managed by corporations called ANCSA, or native, corporations, of which there are thirteen regional ones and dozens of local ones.
Alaska has no counties in the sense used in the rest of the country; however, the state is divided into 27 census areas and boroughs. The difference between boroughs and census areas is that boroughs have an organized area-wide government, while census areas are artificial divisions defined by the United States Census Bureau.

Business.

Alaska's main agriculture output is seafood, although nursery stock, dairy products, vegetables, and livestock are produced and used internally. Manufacturing is limited, with most foodstuffs and general goods imported from elsewhere. Employment is primarily in government and industries such as natural resource extraction, shipping, and transportation. There is also a small but growing service and tourism sector. Its industrial outputs are crude petroleum, natural gas, coal, gold, precious metals, zinc and other mining, seafood processing, timber and wood products.

Transport.

Alaska has various transportation options. Some of Alaska is connected by roads (and sometimes a tunnel) to the highways of Canada and of the rest of the United States. These places are "on the road system". Along the Pacific Ocean, many places have freight and passenger service from ocean-going ships. Most places have air service, ranging from jets on tarmac to floatplanes on lakes.

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