We used Saturday Night Science to analyze Alaska’s most recent Census data to determine the divorce rate for each city in Alaska based on the percentage of currently divorced residents.
The city with the highest divorce rate in Alaska is Wrangell, with 6.0% of people over 15 years of age being divorced, per the most recent census data. The city with the lowest divorce rate in Alaska is Cordova.
Alaska is 3.0% divorced overall. There are some 17,656 people living in Alaska over fifteen years of age who are divorced. You can compare that to the 28,339,199 Americans who are currently divorced.
Isn’t the divorce rate in America close to 50%? Yes indeed. But we’re measuring something else; we are looking at counts and percentages of people over 15 years old who are currently divorced. That 50% statistic is for the percentage of people who have ever been divorced.
So now that we have you biting your nails, rethinking your worldview, and pulling out your hair, let’s look at the places in Alaska with the highest rates of divorcees.
6.0% divorced · #2 highest divorce rate in Alaska
The City and Borough of Wrangell is a borough in the U.S. state of Alaska. As of the 2010 census the population was 2,369. Incorporated as a Unified Home Rule Borough on May 30, 2008, Wrangell was previously a city in the Wrangell-Petersburg Census Area.
The primary industry of the city is fishing, and it is a tourist destination. The former large wood processing factory in Wrangell closed down some time ago.
Data | Crime | Cost of living | Movers
6.0% divorced · #2 highest divorce rate in Alaska
Data | Crime | Cost of living | Movers
6.0% divorced · #2 highest divorce rate in Alaska
Data | Crime | Cost of living | Movers
5.0% divorced · #5 highest divorce rate in Alaska
5.0% divorced · #5 highest divorce rate in Alaska
Located in
Ketchikan Gateway Borough, Alaska
Ketchikan 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 fifth-most populous city in the state, and tenth-most populous community when census-designated places are included.
Data | Crime | Cost of living | Movers
5.0% divorced · #5 highest divorce rate in Alaska
4.0% divorced · #10 highest divorce rate in Alaska
Nome is a city in the Nome Census Area in the Unorganized Borough of the U.S. state of Alaska. The city is located on the southern Seward Peninsula coast on Norton Sound of the Bering Sea. In 2014 the population was estimated at 3,788, a rise from the 3,598 recorded in the 2010 Census. Nome was incorporated on April 9, 1901, and was once the most-populous city in Alaska. Nome lies within the region of the Bering Straits Native Corporation, which is headquartered in Nome.
The city of Nome claims to be home to the world’s largest gold pan, although this claim has been disputed by the Canadian city of Quesnel, British Columbia.
Data | Crime | Cost of living | Movers
4.0% divorced · #10 highest divorce rate in Alaska
Located in
Matanuska-Susitna Borough, Alaska
Palmer is a city in and the borough seat of the Matanuska-Susitna Borough in the U.S. state of Alaska. It is part of the Anchorage Metropolitan Statistical Area. As of the 2010 census, the population of the city is 5,937.
Data | Crime | Cost of living | Movers
4.0% divorced · #10 highest divorce rate in Alaska
Seward is a city in Kenai Peninsula Borough in the U.S. state of Alaska. According to 2014 Census Bureau estimates, the population of the city is 2,528. It was named after William H. Seward, United States Secretary of State under Abraham Lincoln and Andrew Johnson. In 1867, he fought for the U.S. purchase of Alaska which he finally negotiated to acquire from Russia.
Mile 0 of the historic Iditarod Trail is at Seward. In the early 1900s the trail was blazed in order to transport people and goods to and from the port of Seward to interior Alaska.
Data | Crime | Cost of living | Movers
4.0% divorced · #10 highest divorce rate in Alaska
The receipts
Compare the top ten
Pick a metric. The bars rescale. The red line is Alaska’s statewide median.
Alaska statewide median: $92,788
On the map
Where Alaska’s highest divorce rates are
Saturday Night Science
How We Determined The Places In Alaska That Get Un-Hitched The Most
We used Saturday Night Science to look at the U.S. Census Bureau on divorce rates. Because who likes tracking misery more than the U.S. government?
Specifically, we looked at the 2020-2024 American Community Survey table S1201 — Marital Status. Pretty straightforward on that front — we just had to extract the following column of data:
Today, the analysis focuses on the 27 places in Alaska with a population of over 1,000.
- Population 15 Years and Over -> Divorced
We ranked each place by the percentage of divorcees over 15 years of age from highest to lowest. We crowned the divorce capital of Alaska the place with the highest incidence of divorcees, Wrangell.
And if you’re trying to avoid divorce, check out Cordova, the city with the lowest divorce rate in Alaska. We updated this article for 2026 and this list is our eleventh time ranking the cities in Alaska with the highest divorce rates.
The full plate
Cities With The Highest Divorce Rates In Alaska
Click any column to sort. Search by city name.
| Rank | City | Population | Divorcees | Divorce Rate |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2 | Wrangell | 2,088 | 100 | 6.0% |
| 2 | Dillingham | 2,109 | 101 | 6.0% |
| 2 | Kotzebue | 2,984 | 143 | 6.0% |
| 5 | Sand Point | 1,064 | 43 | 5.0% |
| 5 | Ketchikan | 8,078 | 323 | 5.0% |
| 5 | King Cove | 1,352 | 54 | 5.0% |
| 10 | Nome | 3,653 | 117 | 4.0% |
| 10 | Palmer | 6,268 | 201 | 4.0% |
| 10 | Seward | 2,794 | 89 | 4.0% |
| 10 | Quinhagak | 1,311 | 42 | 4.0% |
| 10 | North Pole | 2,370 | 76 | 4.0% |
| 10 | Wasilla | 9,720 | 311 | 4.0% |
| 10 | Homer | 5,877 | 188 | 4.0% |
| 17 | Bethel | 6,312 | 151 | 3.0% |
| 17 | Anchorage | 288,976 | 6,935 | 3.0% |
| 17 | Houston | 1,834 | 44 | 3.0% |
| 17 | Juneau | 31,794 | 763 | 3.0% |
| 17 | Valdez | 3,847 | 92 | 3.0% |
| 17 | Sitka | 8,368 | 201 | 3.0% |
| 17 | Craig | 1,131 | 27 | 3.0% |
| 23 | Kenai | 7,641 | 122 | 2.0% |
| 23 | Fairbanks | 32,083 | 513 | 2.0% |
| 23 | Delta Junction | 1,217 | 19 | 2.0% |
| 23 | Soldotna | 4,485 | 72 | 2.0% |
| 23 | Kodiak | 5,447 | 87 | 2.0% |
| 26 | Unalaska | 4,556 | 36 | 1.0% |
| 26 | Cordova | 2,453 | 20 | 1.0% |
Source: U.S. Census ACS 2020-2024. 27 cities with more than 1,000 residents.
Summary
Getting Some Closure In Alaska After Untying The Knot
We now have a sense of what places in the Last Frontier don’t pay much attention to the whole “’til death do we part” phrase.
The cities with the highest divorce rate in Alaska are Wrangell, Dillingham, Kotzebue, Sand Point, Ketchikan, King Cove, Nome, Palmer, Seward, and Quinhagak.
Try to keep in mind that the reason cities rank where they do in Alaska could be because of the age, education, and income distribution, as all of those things impact the rate of divorce.
