Alaska is the largest state in the United States
by area, the 4th least populous and the least densely populated
of the 50 United States. Approximately half of Alaska's residents
live within the Anchorage metropolitan area. Alaska was purchased
from Russia on March 30, 1867, for $7.2 million at approximately
two cents per acre. The land went through several administrative
changes before becoming an organized territory on May 11, 1912,
and the 49th state of the U.S. on January 3, 1959. The name
"Alaska" was already introduced in the Russian colonial
period, when it was used only for the peninsula and is derived
from the Aleut, meaning "the mainland" or, more
literally, "the object towards which the action of the sea
is directed". It is also known as Alyeska, the "great
land", an Aleut word derived from the same root.
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