Alaska's relationship with the federal government has been dominated since 1967 by battles over control of the 11 billion barrels of oil in the North Slope field, which was discovered that year.

KEY FACTS Population: 626,932 (ranked 48 among states) Governor: Frank Murkowski (R) Electoral college votes: 3

This is a crunch issue because the state receives all the royalties from oil extraction. They provide 80% of its revenue, and underpin the low-tax regime (the state income tax was abolished in 1980) that has enabled Alaska to grow despite a decline in oil revenues and military spending.

In the last several years, the battles have been between environmentalists and oilmen, particularly since the proposal in President Bush's Energy Plan to oil drilling on the coastal plain of Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

2003 CONGRESS House of Representatives: 1 Republican Senate: 2 Republican

Republican moderates joined with Democrats to defeat this in the Senate, which will endear none of them to Alaskan voters. Expect President Bush to win handsomely here in 2004.

The state not only stands apart geographically from the rest of the US, but it would not be part of the country at all had Secretary of State William Seward not purchased it from Russia in 1876 for $7.2m.

VOTING RECORD 2000: Bush 59%, Gore 28%, Nader 10% 1996: Clinton 33%, Dole 51 % 1992: Clinton 30%, Bush 39%, Perot 28%

Alaska has been inhabited longer than anywhere else in the Americas and one in seven Alaskans are native peoples. But only 38% of the population was born in Alaska and more than 40% live in Anchorage.