Tongass National Forest

Opened on September 10, 1907 Tongass National Forest (English Tongass National Forest, officially Tongass / Stikine National Forest ) located in Southeast Alaska, USA, in the so-called Alaska Panhandle.

The forest covers an area of 69,000 km ², the largest national forest in the country, it is managed by the U.S. Forest Service. At the most exposed parts of the west coast of Iceland on Baranof orographic rainfall produced enough rainfall to grow a temperate rainforest. The landscape is dominated by glaciers and numerous fjords as the Endicott or Tracy Arm in the Boundary Ranges, the northern part of the Coast Mountains. On the mountain ridge is the boundary to the Canadian province of British Columbia. By 1903 there was a dispute over the border area between Canada and the United States (Alaska boundary dispute ). Two-thirds of the area is covered with ice or snow, or consist of rocks.

In the Tongass National Forest about 75,000 people live in 31 communities, including indigenous peoples such as the Tlingit, Haida and Tsimshian the. It is named after the group of Tongass belonging to the Tlingit. The Tongass once populated the area in and around Ketchikan. The largest city is Juneau, also the capital of Alaska.

Incorporated into the National Forest are the Admiralty Iceland National Monument and the Misty Fjords National Monument, two nature reserves on the type of National Monuments, and Wilderness Areas 19, the strongest protection category of the United States. Around 1 /3 of the total area ( 23,000 km ² ) of the National Forest are dedicated as a wildlife refuge areas.