Why isn Alaska divided into counties?
The minutes of the constitutional convention indicate that counties were not used as a form of local government for various reasons. The failure of some local economies to generate enough revenue to support separate counties was an important issue as well as the desire to use a model that would reflect the unique character of Alaska, provide for maximum local input, and avoid a body of county case law already in existence. Instead, Alaska adopted boroughs as a form of regional government. This regionalization was an attempt to avoid having a number of independent, limited-purpose governments with confusing boundaries and inefficient governmental operations.
