What is Southwest Alaska?
{{stack| [[Image:Southwest Alaska Stub.png|thumb|Map showing Southwest Alaska]] [[Image:Map of Alaska Peninsula Volcanoes.gif|thumb|Volcanoes of the Alaska Peninsula]] [[Image:KvichakRiver.jpg|thumb|Kvichak River marshes]] [[Image:Lake Clark National Park.jpg|thumb|[[Lake Clark (Alaska)|Lake Clark]] in Southwest Alaska]] }} '''Southwest Alaska''' is a [[List of regions of the United States|region]] of the [[U.S. state]] of [[Alaska]]. There is no official rule about where it begins and ends. ==Geography== Southwest Alaska includes a big area that does not have a lot of people or towns in it. It is over {{convert|500|mi}} from the western Bering Sea coast to Cook Inlet. A lot of it is on the coast. There is also thousands of square miles forests, swamps, and mountains. One of these mountain ranges is called the Aleutian Range. It is part of the [[Ring of Fire]], which means it is on the coast of the [[Pacific Ocean]] and has lots of volcanoes. Some of the bigger ones are [[Mount Katmai]], [[Novarupta]] and the [[Valley of Ten Thousand Smokes]], [[Mount Redoubt (Alaska)|Mount Redoubt]], [[Mount Iliamna]], and [[Augustine Volcano]]. Also in Southwest Alaska are the ''Pribilof Islands'', ''Nunivak Island'' and other [[Bering Sea]] islands. There is a very large [[river delta]] made by the Yukon River and the Kuskokwim River. Further from the coast there are hundreds of miles of [[highlands]]. Parts of the [[Alaska Range]] are in Southwest Alaska. The [[Kodiak Archipelago]] is another group of islands in Southwest Alaska. Altogether Southwest Alaska is 442,194&nbsp;km² (170,732&nbsp;mi²), slightly larger than California. ==Demographics== [[Image:KodiakAlaskaAerialView.JPG|thumb|left|200px|[[Kodiak, Alaska|Kodiak]]]] Southwest Alaska had a [[population]] of about 53,000 people. This is less than 10% of all the people in Alaska. More than half of those people are [[Alaska Native]]s. About 121 towns and villages are in Southwest Alaska. A lot of them are very small and far away from other towns. Natives in Southwe