Alaska Borough / Census Areas

The U.S. state of Alaska is divided into 19 organized boroughs and one “Unorganized Borough.”

Alaska and Louisiana are the only states that do not call their first-order administrative subdivisions counties (Louisiana uses parishes instead).

Many of the most densely populated regions of the state are part of Alaska’s boroughs, which function similarly to counties in other states.

Unlike county equivalents in the other 49 states, the organized boroughs do not cover the entire land area of the state. The area not part of any organized borough is referred to as the unorganized borough.

The U.S. Census Bureau, in cooperation with the state, divides the Unorganized Borough into 10 census areas, each roughly corresponding to an election district, thus totaling 29 county equivalents.

However, these areas exist solely for the purposes of statistical analysis and presentation. They have no government of their own. Boroughs and census areas are both treated as county-level equivalents by the Census Bureau.