Consumer prices rose 3.1 percent in Anchorage in 2013 - more than the 2.2 percent increase the year before but close to the city's 10-year average of 2.7 percent. The big surprise for 2013 was that energy prices went down in Anchorage after playing a major role in the rise over recent years. Instead, the biggest increases were in transportation, medical care, clothing, and housing costs.

Alaska's population has expanded at a relatively fast pace over the past two decades, with typical growth of over 1 percent a year compared to less than three-quarters of a percent for the nation as a whole. Much of the state's recent growth has been due to its relatively young population and high birth rates.

Surrounded by mountain ranges on all sides, the Copper River Basin, located in what was once the bottom of a massive ice-age glacial lake, carves out its own identity among Alaska regions. One of Alaska's major waterways, the Copper River descends from the Wrangell Mountains and heads north before taking a counterclockwise turn through the basin, the Chugach Mountains, and finally empties into the Gulf of Alaska.

Living in Alaska presents many opportunities and challenges, and finding a home is often one of them. In the coming months, Trends will feature regional housing profiles that detail some of these costs, as Alaska is so large and diverse that its local markets can differ widely. Despite those local differences, it's helpful to first examine the state housing market as a whole to see how it differs from the rest of the nation.

More than 20,000 retail salespeople worked in Alaska in 2002, and for more than 15,000 of them, retail was their main job. Ten years later, most of this group still lived in the state and about 17 percent of those who could be located had made retail sales a continuing career. The others had moved on to more than 500 other occupations, from accounting clerks and roustabouts to registered nurses and attorneys.

People of Asian and Pacific Islander descent form the fastest-growing racial group in Alaska, expanding by 60 percent between 2000 and 2010 - a gain of more than 17,000 people. Pacific Islanders by themselves grew at an even faster rate, more than doubling in population during the same 10-year span.

Preliminary data show Alaska's job growth slowed to 0.5 percent in 2013, and the state is expected to add jobs at a rate of 0.4 percent this year. That would make 2014 the fifth straight year of employment increases since the 2009 downturn, but the growth will be at a lower rate than the state's 10-year average. Shrinking government employment is a major reason for this tempered forecast. Government has traditionally provided slow but steady job growth in Alaska, but several years of cuts - mainly federal - have put a damper on overall job growth.

One of the federal government's first acts after purchasing Alaska was to send the U.S. Army to occupy and administer its new territory. However, it wasn't until World War II that the military solidified its role as one of Alaska's economic mainstays. The military's presence in the 1940s was so major and transformational that the state was commonly referred to as 'Military Alaska.' More than 100,000 troops poured into the state along with billions of dollars for infrastructure.

Alaska is among the world's leaders for seafood harvesting, with landings worth more than $1.7 billion in 2012 and more than half of all fish caught commercially in the United States. Six of the top 10 national ports for value and four of the top 10 for poundage are in Alaska, and for the 16th straight year, Dutch Harbor-Unalaska led the nation for pounds landed.

The picturesque coastline of this southwestern Alaska region is marked by the mighty Yukon and Kuskokwim rivers spilling out into the Bering Sea. The alluvial deposits left by the rivers wanderings formed the landscape now known as the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta.