Wasilla Alaska

Wasilla overview

Wasilla is a city in Matanuska-Susitna Borough, United States and the sixth-largest city in Alaska. It is located on the northern point of Cook Inlet in the Matanuska-Susitna Valley of the southcentral part of the state. The city’s population was 7,831 at the 2010 census, up from 5,469 in 2000. Estimates in 2019 put the population at 10,838.[5] Wasilla is the largest city in the borough and a part of the Anchorage metropolitan area, which had an estimated population of 399,148 in 2018.

Established at the intersection of the Alaska Railroad and Old Carle Wagon Road, the city prospered at the expense of the nearby mining town of Knik. Historically entrepreneurial, the economic base shifted in the 1970s from small-scale agriculture and recreation to support for workers employed in Anchorage or on Alaska’s North Slope oilfields and related infrastructure. The George Parks Highway turned the town into a commuter suburb of Anchorage.[6]

Wasilla gained international attention when Sarah Palin, who served as Mayor of Wasilla before her election as Governor of Alaska, was chosen by John McCain as his running mate for Vice President of the United States in the 2008 United States presidential election.

Wasilla is named after Chief Wasilla, a local Dena’ina chief.[7] “Wasilla” is the anglicized spelling of the chief’s Russian-given name, Васи́лий Vasilij, which corresponds to the English name Basil.[8]