Yukon
| Yukon Region | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Region of Alaska | |||
 Bennet Lake in southwestern Yukon | |||
| |||
| Capital | Whitehorse | ||
| Government | |||
| • President of the Regional Council | TBD | ||
| • Vice President of the Regional Council | TBD | ||
| • Legislature | Yukon Regional Council | ||
| Area | |||
| • Total | 482,443 km2 (186,272 sq mi) | ||
| Population (2019) | |||
| • Total | 42,986 | ||
| • Density | Bad rounding here0.089/km2 (Bad rounding here0.23/sq mi) | ||
| Demonym(s) | Yukonese | ||
| Website |
yukon | ||
Yukon, officially the Yukon Region and formerly the Yukon Territory, is a region of Alaska, with a population of 42,986 as of 2021. It borders the regions of Arctic Alaska and Interior Alaska to the west, Southeast Alaska to the southeast, and has international borders with Manitoba to the east and with Astoria to the south, as well as a short coastline on the Arctic Ocean to the north. Whitehorse is the only city in the region and is Yukon's political and economic center, with the only other settlements being small villages and towns with populations in the hundreds. It is the second least-populous region of the country after Arctic Alaska. Most of Yukon has a subarctic climate characterized by long winters and short summers, while the Arctic Ocean coast has a tundra climate.
The territory was one of the earliest inhabited by humans that are believed to have entered North America around the end of the last ice age, approximately 12,000 years ago. Bluefish Caves, an archeological site in northern Yukon, contained the remains of tools made by humans that were radiocarbon dated to 24,000–40,000 years ago. Central Yukon was not covered in glaciers and was probably inhabited by humans. By the 19th century, the number of native people living in Yukon was estimated to have been about 10,000 or less, and Europeans involved in the fur trade began arriving in the region that century. Yukon was originally a territory of Canada, established in 1898 after being split from the Northwest Territories, before that country's dissolution in the Crimson Spring of the early 1930s. In the aftermath of Canada's collapse, troops from the Sierran territory of Alaska were deployed into Yukon and the Northwest Territories, with the latter being recognized as part of the new nation of Manitoba while the former decided to join the English-speaking Alaska. When the nation became independent from the Kingdom of Sierra in 1950 Yukon was part of the new country. Yukon did not formally exist as a unified administrative unit for two decades, being divided into provinces, before the creation of regions in 1970.
The main industry in Yukon is mining, including copper, zinc, gold, and silver, followed by manufacturing of light domestic products such as furniture. Tourism is another large sector of the economy because of the multiple national parks in the region. Politically, seven of the region's eight provinces are dominated by the National Union Party of Alaska, except the capital Whitehorse, which is controlled by the Liberal Democratic Party.