Anchorage, Alaska, USA

🇺🇸 Anchorage is Alaska's most populous city. The Anchorage metropolitan area includes Anchorage and the neighbouring Matanuska-Susitna Borough. Anchorage is in Southcentral Alaska, at the terminus of the Cook Inlet, on a peninsula formed by the Knik Arm to the north and the Turnagain Arm to the south.

Due to its location, almost equidistant from New York City, Tokyo, and Frankfurt, Germany (via the polar route), Anchorage lies within 10 hours by air of nearly 90% of the industrialised world. For this reason, Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport is a common refuelling stop for international cargo flights and home to a major FedEx hub, which the company calls a "critical part" of its global network of services. Anchorage has won the All-America City Award four times: in 1956, 1965, 1984–85, and 2002, from the National Civic League. Kiplinger has named it the United States' most tax-friendly city.

Economy Anchorage's largest economic sectors include transportation, military, municipal, state and federal government, tourism, corporate headquarters (including regional headquarters for multinational corporations) and resource extraction. Large portions of the local economy depend on Anchorage's geographical location and surrounding natural resources.

The Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport (TSAIA) is the world's fourth busiest airport for cargo traffic, surpassed only by Memphis, Hong Kong, and Shanghai Pudong. This traffic is strongly linked to Anchorage's location along great circle routes between Asia and the lower 48. In addition, the airport has an abundant supply of jet fuel from in-state refineries in North Pole and Kenai. This jet fuel is transported to the Port of Anchorage, then by rail or pipeline to the airport.

The Port of Anchorage receives 95 percent of all goods destined for Alaska. Ships from Totem Ocean Trailer Express and Horizon Lines arrive twice weekly from the Port of Tacoma in Washington. Along with handling these activities, the port is a storage facility for jet fuel from Alaskan refineries, which is used at both TSAIA and Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson (JBER).

The Port of Anchorage is undertaking an extensive 7-year Anchorage Port Modernization Project to upgrade its aging infrastructure, support larger deeper draft vessels, and future proof the port seismically and environmentally for another 75 years.

The United States military has a combined base with three installations forming the JBER: Elmendorf Air Force Base; Fort Richardson; and Kulis Air National Guard Base near TSAIA. The combination of these three bases employ approximately 8,500 civilian and military personnel. These individuals along with their families comprise approximately ten percent of the local population.

While Juneau is the official state capital of Alaska, more state employees reside in the Anchorage area. Approximately 6,800 state employees work in Anchorage. The State of Alaska purchased the Bank of America Center (which it renamed the Robert B. Atwood Building) to house most of its offices, after several decades of leasing space in the McKay Building (now the McKinley Tower) and later the Frontier Building.

The resource sector, mainly petroleum, is arguably Anchorage's most visible industry, with many high rises bearing the logos of large multinationals such as BP and ConocoPhillips. While field operations are centered on the Alaska North Slope and south of Anchorage around Cook Inlet, the majority of offices and administration are found in Anchorage. The headquarters building of ConocoPhillips Alaska, a subsidiary of ConocoPhillips, is in downtown Anchorage. It is also the tallest building in Alaska. Many companies who provide oilfield support services are likewise headquartered outside of Anchorage but maintain a substantial presence in the city, most notably Arctic Slope Regional Corporation and CH2M Hill.

Four small airlines, Alaska Central Express, Era Aviation, Hageland Aviation Services, and PenAir, are headquartered in Anchorage. Alaska Airlines (at one point headquartered in Anchorage, but now headquartered in the Seattle area), has major offices and facilities at TSAIA, including the offices of the Alaska Airlines Foundation. Prior to their respective dissolutions, airlines MarkAir, Reeve Aleutian Airways and Wien Air Alaska were also headquartered in Anchorage. The Reeve Building, at the corner of West Sixth Avenue and D Street, was spared the wrecking ball when the city block it sits on was cleared to make way for the Anchorage 5th Avenue Mall, and was incorporated into the mall's structure. In 2013, Forbes named Anchorage among its list of Best Places for Business and Careers.

Five Alaska Native regional corporations are based in Anchorage: The Aleut Corporation, Bristol Bay Native Corporation, Calista Corporation, Chugach Alaska Corporation, and Cook Inlet Region, Inc.

Anchorage does not levy a sales tax. However, it charges a 12% bed tax on hotel stays and an 8% tax on car rentals. Since about 2000, in response to strong revenue and occupancy rates, major hotel developers from the Lower 48 have been building new hotels along C Street from International Airport Road to just north of Tudor Road, making this half-mile stretch of C Street a new "hotel row". From Anchorage people can easily head south to popular fishing locations on the Kenai Peninsula or north to locations such as Denali National Park and Fairbanks.