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Lamplugh Glacier in Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve, Alaska, USA
The land of big
Remarkable as it looks on your desktop, Lamplugh Glacier is just a frosty face in the crowd back in its home neighbourhood. Depending on how you count it, Alaska is home to between 27,000 and 100,000 glaciers. If that tally sounds unbelievable, get used to it. Here in the biggest US state by far, enormous numbers are the norm. Covering over 1.5 million square kilometres of land – more than Texas, California and Montana combined – Alaska contains seven of the USA's top 10 largest national parks (including this one, Glacier Bay), 17 of its 20 tallest mountains, over 100 volcanoes, 12,000 rivers, 88,059 kilometres of coast and 3 million lakes. The only figure that's small is its population density, well below one person per square kilometre.
The land of big
Remarkable as it looks on your desktop, Lamplugh Glacier is just a frosty face in the crowd back in its home neighbourhood. Depending on how you count it, Alaska is home to between 27,000 and 100,000 glaciers. If that tally sounds unbelievable, get used to it. Here in the biggest US state by far, enormous numbers are the norm. Covering over 1.5 million square kilometres of land – more than Texas, California and Montana combined – Alaska contains seven of the USA's top 10 largest national parks (including this one, Glacier Bay), 17 of its 20 tallest mountains, over 100 volcanoes, 12,000 rivers, 88,059 kilometres of coast and 3 million lakes. The only figure that's small is its population density, well below one person per square kilometre.
Lamplugh Glacier lies within a national park that's also a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
© Andrew Peacock / iStock / Getty Images Plus 2026-09-11 08:45:51 :