Alaska is a non-contiguous U.S. state on the northwest extremity of North America. It borders the Canadian province of British Columbia and the Yukon territory to the east; it shares a western maritime border in the Bering Strait with Russia's Chukotka Autonomous Okrug. The Chukchi and Beaufort Seas of the Arctic Ocean lie to the north and the Pacific Ocean lies to the south. Technically a semi-exclave of the U.S., it is the largest exclave in the world.
The Russian settlement of St. Paul's Harbor (present-day Kodiak town), Kodiak Island, 1814
Miners and prospectors climb the Chilkoot Trail during the 1898 Klondike Gold Rush.
U.S. troops navigate snow and ice during the Battle of Attu in May 1943.
Bob Bartlett and Ernest Gruening, Alaska's inaugural U.S. Senators, hold the 49 star U.S. Flag after the admission of Alaska as the 49th state.
North America is a continent in the Northern and Western Hemispheres. North America is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South America and the Caribbean Sea, and to the west and south by the Pacific Ocean. The region includes the Bahamas, Bermuda, Canada, the Caribbean, Central America, Clipperton Island, Greenland, Mexico, Saint Pierre and Miquelon, Turks and Caicos Islands, and the United States.
A 2005 NASA satellite image of North America
The Sonoran Desert in Arizona
Moraine Lake in Banff National Park in Alberta
Nuuk, the capital of Greenland