| Anchorage is located in South Central Alaska,
at 61 degrees north latitude (about the same as Stockholm and
St. Petersburg), -149 degrees longitude (about the same as Hawaii),
northeast of the Alaska Peninsula, Kodiak Island, and Cook Inlet,
due north of the Kenai Peninsula, northwest of Prince William
Sound and Alaska Panhandle, and nearly due south of Mount McKinley/Denali.
The city is situated on a triangular peninsula bordered on the
east by the rugged, scenic, and eminently hike-worthy Chugach
Mountains, on the northwest by the Knik Arm, and on the southwest
by the Turnagain Arm, upper branches of the Cook Inlet, which
itself is the northernmost reach of the Pacific Ocean. Despite
this, the city lacks coastal beaches, instead having wide, treacherous
mudflats. Adjacent to the north is Matanuska-Susitna Borough,
Alaska. To the south is Kenai Peninsula Borough, Alaska, and
to the east is Valdez-Cordova Census Area, Alaska. |
