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Northwest Arctic Borough, Alaska

Historic newspapers, landmarks, and county history layers for genealogists and local historians.

—newspaper titles

—digitized titles

2historic places

—earliest paper

1990formed

7,793pop. 2020

4cemeteries

—CW battlefields

At a glance

Summary

The National Register of Historic Places includes 2 listed properties in the county, first listed in 1972; 2 are also National Historic Landmarks. Most listings are in or near Kotzebue, Kiana.

Summary generated automatically from the source data on this page.

Newspapers

Library of Congress

Newspaper directory data for Alaska is not yet loaded on this site. Browse Northwest Arctic titles at the Library of Congress.

National Register of Historic Places

NPS NRHP

0 of 2 listings mapped; some locations are restricted by NPS to protect sensitive sites.

2 listed properties

Property	City	Type	Listed
Cape Krusenstern Archeological District National Monument NHL	Kotzebue	Site	1973
Onion Portage Archeological District NHL	Kiana	District	1972

Source: National Park Service, National Register of Historic Places. Property links open NRHP nomination files at the National Archives.

County formation

Newberry AHCB

Northwest Arctic was formed in 1990 (1990-04-01) from all of Kobuk Census Area, part of North Slope Borough 2 June 1986.

1990 census. Northwest Arctic Borough served as a census division. Northwest Arctic Borough was created from all of Kobuk Census Area and part of North Slope Borough 2 June 1986.

Source: Newberry Library, Atlas of Historical County Boundaries.

Population by decade

Census

Northwest Arctic Borough population from 1960 to 2020 (Census historical series).

1960	1980	2000	2020
3,560	4,831	7,208	7,793

Sources: U.S. Census Bureau historical county population (Forstall 1790–1990) and public-domain / CC0 county population series through 2020.

National Park Service sites nearby

NPS

Park units within about 40 km of the county centroid (from NPS Public POIs; no API key).

Site	Type	Dist.
Western Arctic National Parklands	Park unit	37.1 km
Kobuk Valley National Park	Park unit	57.4 km

Source: NPS National Datasets / Public POIs. The NPS Developer API requires a free key and was not used.

Cemeteries & historical places

USGS GNIS

4 cemeteries and 10 historical populated places (ghost towns / former settlements) recorded in USGS GNIS for this county.

Cemeteries — 4 of 4 listed

Name	Lat	Lon
Kotzebue Cemetery	66.89543	-162.59496
Noorvik Grave Sites	66.82636	-161.03192
Noorvik Grave Sites	66.82761	-161.05292
Shungnak Cemetery	66.87649	-157.16779

Historical populated places — 10 of 10

Name	Lat	Lon
Akshadak	65.74365	-160.01787
Aniuk	68.0	-158.0
Aniyak	67.06667	-163.3
Kalla	66.90028	-156.64389
Taapkuk	66.55	-163.6
Talak	67.78333	-164.4
Talikoot	67.14611	-163.50806
Ulezara	67.0	-163.0
Umnokalukta	66.91667	-157.5
Unnatak	67.1	-157.8

Source: USGS Geographic Names Information System (public domain). Cemeteries from the 2021 NationalFile archive; historical places from GNIS HistoricalFeatures topical extract.

Historical markers

HMdb link

Marker text and photos from the Historical Marker Database (HMdb) are not embedded here. HMdb allows non-commercial reuse with attribution, but commercial/compensated use needs written permission; this is a commercial site, so we only link out.

Search HMdb for Northwest Arctic County, Alaska

Terms: hmdb.org/copyright.asp. Linking is encouraged by HMdb.