Juneau

Juneau (/ˈdʒuːnoʊ/ JOO-noh; Tlingit: Dzántik'i Héeni [ˈtsʌ́ntʰɪ̀kʼɪ̀ ˈhíːnɪ̀] transl. Base of the Flounder's River), officially the City and Borough of Juneau, is the capital of the U.S. state of Alaska, located along the Gastineau Channel in Southeast Alaska. Juneau was named the capital of Alaska in 1906, when the government of what was then the District of Alaska was moved from Sitka as dictated by the U.S. Congress in 1900. On July 1, 1970, the City of Juneau merged with the City of Douglas and the surrounding Greater Juneau Borough to form the current consolidated city-borough, which ranks as the second-largest municipality in the United States by area and is larger than both Rhode Island and Delaware.

Downtown Juneau is nestled at the base of Mount Juneau and it is across the channel from Douglas Island. As of the 2020 census, the City and Borough had a population of 32,255, making it the third-most populous city in Alaska after Anchorage and Fairbanks, but the sixth-least populous U.S. state capital. Juneau experiences a daily influx of 16,000 people or more from visiting cruise ships between the months of May and September. The city is named after a gold prospector from Quebec, Joe Juneau, although it was once called Rockwell and then Harrisburg (after Juneau's co-prospector, Richard Harris). The Tlingit name of the town is Dzántik'i Héeni (transl. Base of the Flounder's River), and Auke Bay just north of Juneau proper is called Áak'w (transl. Little Lake) in Tlingit. The Taku River, just south of Juneau, was named after the cold t'aakh wind, which occasionally blows down from the mountains.