Flyer Distribution Anchorage, AK

The Anchorage metropolitan area, which includes Anchorage and the neighboring Matanuska-Susitna Borough, had a population of 398,328 in 2020, accounting for more than half the state's population. In September 1975, the City of Anchorage merged with the Greater Anchorage Area Borough, creating the Municipality of Anchorage. Because of this, less than 10% of the Municipality (or Muni) is populated, with the highest concentration of people in the 100 square-mile area that makes up the city proper, on a peninsula at the headwaters of the inlet, commonly called Anchorage, the City of Anchorage, or the Anchorage Bowl. Archaeological evidence found along Turnagain Arm, south of Anchorage, found that the settlement of Cook Inlet began 5,000 years ago by the Alutiiq Eskimo tribe, who arrived by kayak. The Dena'ino had no fixed settlements, moving throughout the region with the change of the seasons. Captain James Cook was one of the first European explorers to map the coast of Alaska, and many geographical features (mountains, islands, rivers, waterways, etc.) still bear his name. Cook then sailed south to explore the other arm and, in a bad mood after the Resolution, ran aground on a sandbar on the way back from shallow water. He named it "Turnagain" because he could find no sign of a passage. The Russians placed trading posts in Cook Inlet, such as the Shelikhov-Golikov Company station at Niteh on Palmer Flats (between the Knik and Matanuska rivers), which created small agricultural communities at Ninilchik, Seldovia, and Eklutna. In 1888, gold was discovered along Turnagain Arm, south of present-day Anchorage, which led to a new wave of exploration, and small towns such as Spenard, Hope, Rainbow, Bird, Indian, and Girdwood began to spring up. Several Dena'ina settlements existed along the Knik arm for many years. In 1975, the City of Anchorage and the Borough of the Greater Anchorage Area (which includes Eagle River, Girdwood, Glen Alps, and several other communities) were merged into the geographically larger Borough of Anchorage.[27] The city continued to grow in the 1980s with capital projects and an aggressive beautification campaign. Communities, including Fairbanks and much of rural Alaska, opposed moving the capital to Anchorage out of fear.