ALASKA – It’s hard to find many places that compare to Alaska. It’s non-contiguous, one of the last U.S. states to join the union, and prone to some extreme changes in weather and daylight.
Alaska is also the third-smallest state in terms of population. That might be hard to believe when you consider it’s, by far, the largest U.S. state.
For perspective, every other U.S. state can fit into Alaska at least twice if you take square mileage into consideration. Alaska covers 665,384 square miles of land, according to the World Population Review.
The next closest state is Texas, which doesn’t even cover 300,000 square miles. Aside from Texas, every U.S. state could hypothetically fit into Alaska several times or more, based on square mileage.
An Alaska Facebook fan page called “The Alaska Life” raised attention to this phenomenon earlier this month, offering perspective on just how large it stands alone compared to the contiguous United States.
Missouri and Illinois compared to Alaska
Two key states in the St. Louis metro, Missouri and Illinois, are among the Top 20 in population size and top half of states in terms of total square mileage.
According to World Population Review, Missouri covers 69,707 square miles, while Illinois covers 57,914 square miles.
Based on Alaska’s total area, Missouri would fit into Alaska nine times, while Illinois would fit into Alaska around 11 times.
It could be considerably more. The state of Rhode Island, the smallest in terms of square miles, fits into Alaska roughly 425 times.
