Juneau, Alaska Juneau, Alaska The City and Borough of Juneau ( ; Tlingit: ), commonly known as Juneau, is the capital city of Alaska. It is a unified municipality on Gastineau Channel in the Alaskan panhandle, and it is the second largest city in the United States by area. Juneau has been the capital of Alaska since 1906, when the government of what was the District of Alaska was moved from Sitka as dictated by the U.S. Congress in 1900. The municipality unified on July 1, 1970, when the city of Juneau merged with the city of Douglas and the surrounding Greater
Juneau, Alaska state legislature and the offices of the governor and lieutenant governor. Some other executive branch offices have moved elsewhere in the state. Recent discussion has been focused between relocating the seat of state government outside Juneau and building a new capitol building in Juneau; neither position has led efforts to keep the capital in Juneau. Long before European settlement in the Americas, the Gastineau Channel was a favorite fishing ground for the Auke ("A'akw Kwáan") and Taku tribes, who had inhabited the surrounding area for thousands of years. The "A'akw Kwáan" had a village and burying ground here. In the