Your Alaska trivia for the day.
 

Alaska is the largest state in the union. You probably know that already.

But if you take the largest borough (county) in Alaska, Yukon-Koyukuk, out of the state and made it its own state, Alaska would still be the largest state and Yukon-Koyukuk would be the 4th-largest state after Alaska, Texas, and California (bigger than Montana).

If you then did the same thing with the second-largest borough, North Slope, the three states would be the 1st, 4th, and 12th largest states (bigger than Idaho at #12).

If you then did the same thing with the third-largest borough, Bethel, the four states would be the 1st, 4th, 12th, and 38th largest states (bigger than Kentucky at #38).

If you then did the same thing with the fourth-largest borough, Northwest Arctic, the original state of Alaska would drop to 2nd (99.6% of the size of Texas), and the five states would be the 2nd, 4th, 12th, 38th, and 41st largest states (bigger than Indiana at #42).

Same thing with the fifth-largest, Valdez-Cordova, and you'd have the 2nd, 4th, 12th, 38th, 41st, and 43rd largest states (bigger than Maine at #44).

Same thing with the 6th, 7th, 8th, and 9th-largest, (Southeast Fairbanks, Matanuska-Susitna, Lake and Peninsula, and Nome) and you'd have the 2nd, 4th, 12th, 38th, 41st, 43rd, 46th, 47th, 49th, and 50th largest states (bigger than Maryland at #51). (Recall that there are now 59 states.) The original state of Alaska would still have four counties that are larger than Maryland.

The population of the top six of these new states from Kokuyuk through Southeast Fairbanks would only fill Arrowhead Stadium less than 3/4ths full.

You may resume your normal activities now.

Alaska is cool.

Alaska is really cool.

That would be a great state motto.

You must have had a slow day at work crunching numbers to come up with those stats.

Not as good as "Alaska has really good barbecue, and a moose is bigger than a cow or a pig."

At the other end of the spectrum, there are 626 counties in the United States that are larger than Rhode Island. One Missouri county, Texas County, is larger.

Dude alaska should do that, then they'd have 20 votes in the senate...

This is interesting. Down to one decimal point, Texas has the same population density as the United States in total. Both have 79.6 people per square mile.

If you've never been there, you should go. After going there, the Rockies and natural beauty in the lower 48 seem really, really inferior.

If the entire U.S. had the same population density as Manhattan, we would have 236,423,000,000 people (236 billion). That's 700 people for every 1 we have now.

If the entire U.S. had the same population density as the aforementioned Yukon-Koyukuk borough in Alaska, we would have 136,000 people. Kill off 1,999 out of every 2,000 people.

Have you been there? If so, where'd you go? I'm getting kind of interested in doing the Alaska Maritime Highway Ferry out to Unalaska. Seems like it'd be fun.

I saw eskimo's play a game of basketball once

I flew to Anchorage and drove over to Valdez for salmon fishing. About 300 miles or so. On the way, you could literally stop on the side of the road anywhere and take pictures that were of the breathtaking variety. Besides the outstanding fishing we did right off the bank, we also took a little glacier cruise and saw the whales and all that.

This is a picture I took and this kind of stuff was just everywhere.

http://www.chiefsplanet.com/BB/showp...1&postcount=30

The more I hear about Alaska, the more intrigued I get. I'm not a hunter or camper or fisherman, but I think it'd be cool just to go and see the scenery and see what it's like to live there.