Alaska is a land of superlatives -- the biggest this, highest that and most of these.

Whether it's a world-record 97-pound, 4-ounce king salmon or a massive 20,320-foot-tall mountain (Mount McKinley), Alaska is all about unique, amazing sights.

The first thing most visitors to Alaska notice are the mountains. We've got lots of them. Alaska is home to 39 mountain ranges, and the Chugach, Alaska, Kenai, Talkeetna, Aleutian and Tordrillo ranges are easily visible from spots around Anchorage.

On clear days, Mount McKinley and other mountains of the Alaska Range are visible from downtown Anchorage and several other spots around town. One of the best places to see "the high one," as the name Denali translates from an Athabascan language, is from the Tony Knowles Coastal Trail, including stops at Earthquake Park and Point Woronzof. McKinley is the tallest mountain in North America.

McKinley's closest neighbors in the Alaska Range are Mount Foraker and Mount Hunter.

McKinley isn't the state's only big mountain. The Wrangell-St. Elias National Park and Preserve has nine of the 16 highest peaks in the country within its borders. Mount St. Elias at 18,008 feet is the nation's second-tallest mountain.

Alaska also is home to other natural wonders. Consider:

• Alaska is one-sixth the size of the Lower 48, and with 30,000 miles of coastline, Alaska has more coastline than the rest of the states combined.

• It is estimated that there are approximately 100,000 glaciers in Alaska. More than 600 of them are named. The Malaspina Glacier is larger than Rhode Island, and the Nebesna Glacier is 80 miles long. Both are in Wrangell-St. Elias National Park.

• The Aleutian arc contains 80 volcanos, more than 40 of which are active. Volcanos close to Anchorage include Augustine, Redoubt and Iliamna. Mount Spurr, 80 miles west of Anchorage, last erupted in 1992, covering the city in ash. The 1912 explosion of Novarupta Volcano was the largest in North America, creating the Valley of 10,000 Smokes.

• Alaska is home to 17 national park systems. More than 54 million acres -- 13 percent of the state's landmass -- are devoted to national parks. Wrangell-St. Elias is more than 13.2 million acres and is the nation's largest national park. It is twice as big as Denali National Park and six times larger than Yellowstone National Park in the Lower 48.

• The 1964 Good Friday earthquake -- magnitude 9.2 -- was the strongest ever recorded in North America. Alaska has more earthquakes than any other state.

• At 17 million acres, Tongass National Forest in Southeast is the largest in the country, about three times as big as the second largest, which is ...

• Chugach National Forest, at 5.6 million acres. It is roughly the size of Massachusetts and Rhode Island combined.

• Chugach State Park (Anchorage's backyard) is one of the largest state parks in the nation, with more than 500,000 acres. It's less than one-third the size of Wood-Tikchik State Park in Southwest Alaska. At 1.6 million acres, Wood-Tikchik is the nation's largest state park.

• The National Audubon Society says there are 462 naturally occurring bird species in Alaska.

• The Yukon River is Alaska's longest and the third-longest river in the United States.