Front Plate Required: Yes
Area Codes: 907
License Plates:
Windshield Stickers:
Road and Highway Signs:
County Roads:
Highways:
Highway Adoption:
Historical:
None
The majority of Alaska coverage is on state highways running through spruce and birch forests, but coverage also exists in the suburbs around Anchorage, Fairbanks, and a few other select southern cities. Alaska uses the state-wide area code 907, and although they issue several different styles of license plates, the bright orange plate is the easiest to recognize.
Spruce and birch forest
Statewide Area Code, 907
Orange license plate
Some coverage is low quality or fogged over, but in the north, you can often spot another google car either leading or following. Bollard usage is fairly consistent, but they occasionally use temporary white ones or none at all. If present, guardrail bollards will be tall and yellow, and drainage is marked with blue bollards.
Google follow car
Yellow guardrail bollards
Blue bollard marking drainage
In urban areas, many power poles are marked with bold black and yellow numbers, and signs are marked with large colored numbers on the back. Important infrastructure is protected by concrete or steel bollards. Even in the larger cities, the primary vehicles are pickup trucks and SUVs.
Yellow power pole markings
Colored sticker, Anchorage
Orange sticker close-up
Metal bollards protecting hydrant
Highway 11 runs from Fairbanks to the Deadhorse in the far north. It is identifiable by the L-shaped green bollards and relatively tall and thin mile markers. The two-lane asphalt highway becomes a brown dirt road when it crosses from Yukon-Kuyokik into the North Slope. The Trans-Alaska oil pipeline can also be used to identify Highway 11, but it's not always visible from the road.
Alaska boroughs
L-shaped green bollard
Highway 11 mile marker
North Slope and Yukon-Koyukuk border
Trans-Alaska pipeline
Highway 6 runs east of Fairbanks halfway to the Canadian border generally oriented NE-SW. The first half is a single lane asphalt highway with either one or no guardrails. The second half is a dirt road that is lined with pink fireweed as of the 2009 coverage.
Highway 6
One guardrail and pink flowers
The area between Fairbanks and Anchorage is characterized by craggy, glacial mountains against a yellow and white birch forest. In more populated areas, street signs are fortified and stop signs have a colored number sticker on the back, depending on the coverage year. Holiday is the most common filling station, but there are a few competing locally owned stations as well.
Glacier mountains and yellow birches
Fortified sign and sticker in Fairbanks
Fortified sign in Anchorage
Elevated distance marker
Holiday filling station
Alaska's biggest cities are connected by highways built like interstates, but marked as state highways. Fairbanks and Anchorage are both large cities in mid-Alaska but they have different geography. A craggy mountain range rises over east Anchorage, while the eastern horizon in Fairbanks is mostly flat.
Alaskan state highway
Mountains east of Anchorage
Rolling hills east of Fairbanks
Until they update the coverage, Fairbanks has a foggy generation 1 coverage taken by a white car with a black antenna. It has a grid of numbered roads and brown traffic poles with curved lamp posts. Though the standard is still used in some places, Fairbanks has a unique street sign layout, with numbers in the top left and bottom right corners. Many smaller or unmarked intersections have blue bollards on the corners.
Google car in Fairbanks
Curved brown lamps
Fairbanks suburb street sign
Blue bollards at intersections
Blue/yellow public transit
Anchorage has craggy mountains directly to the east, visible from just about everywhere in the city. Wooden power poles have yellow plates with black numbers, and metal poles are numbered with the prefix "ANC". Parking meters are bright orange and the highway adoption signs around Anchorage feature an anchor symbol. Bus stops are marked by curled green lamps and/or a "People Mover" sign.
Tall mountains to the east
ANC marking on metal power poles
Orange parking meters
Anchor symbol on Adopt signs
Blue/People Mover bus sign
Curled green lamp without bus sign
Alaska's capital city is a grid-based town nestled between several mountain peaks. It is centered around Egan Drive, lined by flags from each US state. Downtown roads are numbered, but cross-streets are named with single letters. The suburbs north of town are covered, and can be recognized by the unique mailbox support structures and solid blue boxes that say "Empire" or "Juneau Empire".
State flags along Egan Drive
Lettered avenues & no white border
Suburban mailbox structure
Several other small towns have limited coverage in the south, including Sitka, Haines, and Skagway. Skagway is a small town based around State Street, unique because there are no mailboxes, traffic lights, stickers behind signs, or bold black & yellow power pole markings.
No colored stickers in Skagway
Official coverage featuring a white yacht weaves through the straits of Alaska's tail between Sitka and Ketchikan.
Google boat in Alaska
The orange Alaska license plate is similar in color to the 2010 New York license plate.
Alaska 2004 plate
New York 2010-2020 plate
North Dakota and Indiana also put numbered stickers behind stop signs.
Canada's Yukon has the same terrain as eastern Alaska, but the United States puts yellow bollards on guardrail ends, while Canada doesn't.
Alaska highway guardrail ends
Canadian highway guardrail ends
The Tongass National Forest uses flat green bollards with a white flag that looks similar to bollards in Colorado and Idaho.
White birch tree trunks and glacier mountains can look similar to higher altitude coverage in the Rocky Mountains with quaking aspen.
