Ketchikan (, ) (
Tlingit:
Kichx_áan) is a
city in the
Ketchikan Gateway Borough,
Alaska, United States, the southeasternmost city in Alaska. With a population at the
2010 census of 8,050, it is the sixth-most populous city in the state, and tenth-most populous community when
census-designated places are included. The surrounding borough, encompassing suburbs both north and south of the city along the
Tongass Highway (most of which are commonly regarded as a part of Ketchikan, albeit not a part of the city itself), plus small rural settlements accessible mostly by water, registered a population of 13,477 in that same census. Estimates put the 2014 population at 13,787 people. Incorporated on August 25, 1900, Ketchikan is the earliest extant incorporated city in Alaska, because
consolidation or unification elsewhere in Alaska resulted in dissolution of those communities' city governments. Ketchikan is located on
Revillagigedo Island, so named in 1793 by Captain
George Vancouver.