who did the us buy alaska from

The United States bought Alaska from Russia in 1867, in a deal often called the Alaska Purchase.

Quick answer

• The U.S. purchased Alaska from the Russian Empire for $7.2 million in 1867.

• The agreement was negotiated mainly by U.S. Secretary of State William H. Seward and Russian minister Eduard de Stoeckl.

• At the time, many Americans mocked the deal as “Seward’s Folly,” thinking Alaska was useless frozen land.

A tiny bit of story

In the mid-1800s, Russia found Alaska hard to defend and expensive to maintain, especially after the costly Crimean War.

Seeing the United States expanding westward, Russian leaders decided it was better to sell the territory than risk losing it in a future conflict or to Britain for nothing.

So in 1867, the U.S. and Russia signed a treaty in which the United States agreed to pay $7.2 million—about two cents an acre—for Alaska, and formal control passed to the U.S. later that year.

Information gathered from public forums or data available on the internet and portrayed here.