Municipalities of Alaska

Like all Canadian provinces, Alaska consists of a two-tier system of municipalities which constitute the administrative divisions of the province. Most municipalities are either upper-tier or lower-tier municipalities, although there is one single-tier municipality, namely Anchorage, Alaska's main port city and most populous municipality at any level. Most upper-tier municipalities are incorporated as administrative counties, although some are instead incorporated as regional municipalities, such as the Mendenhall Valley Region, whose administrative seat and most populous lower-tier municipality is the City of Juneau, Alaska's provincial capital. Lower-tier municipalities in Alaska are most commonly incorporated as towns or townships, although there are some cities; townships are generally municipalities which consist of a low, mostly spread-out population with no real urban centre, while towns and cities are more concentrated with a defined centre, the difference being cities have a population of at least 20,000.