Alaska Range

The Alaska Range is the southern main range of the Cordillera in Alaska. It forms an arc from the Alaska Peninsula in the southwest, where it merges with the Aleutian Range at the Chigmit Mountains, to about the border with the Canadian territory of Yukon in the east, where it merges with the Wrangell Mountains into the Elias Range, which belongs to the North American Coast Mountains.

The mountain range, whose highest mountain is the 6168 m high Denali (Mount McKinley), also forms the continental divide between the Bering Sea in the northwest and the Gulf of Alaska in the south.

Subordinate mountain ranges of the Alaska Range are the West Alaska Range with the 2996 m high Mount Hesperus, the Tordrillo Mountains with the 3479 m high Mount Torbert, the West-Central Alaska Range with the Denali, the Hayes Range with the 4216 m high Mount Hayes and the Delta Range with the 3139 m high Mount Kimball. In the northeast the mountain groups of the Mentasta Mountains and Nutzotin Mountains are added to the Alaska Range.

The Alaskan range is home to numerous nature reserves, most notably Denali National Park in the northwest, which has existed since 1917, and Lake Clark National Park in the southwest, which was established in 1980 and covers more than 16,000 km². The Wrangell-St. Elias National Park, located on the southeastern edge of the Alaskan Range, which together with the Canadian Kluane National Park is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, is largely included in the Elias Range.