Mural by Bill Ray "Raven Discovering Mankind in a Clam Shell" along the roadside in downtown, Juneau. Alaska. USA. Tlingit story about creation. The City and Borough of Juneau is the capital city of Alaska. It is a unified municipality located on the Gastineau Channel in the Alaskan panhandle, and is the second largest city in the United States by area. Juneau has been the capital of Alaska since 1906, when the government of what was then the District of Alaska was moved from Sitka as dictated by the U.S. Congress in 1900. The municipality unified on July 1, 1970, when the city of Juneau merged with the city of Douglas and the surrounding Greater Juneau Borough to form the current home rule municipality. The area of Juneau is larger than that of Rhode Island and Delaware individually and is almost as large as the two states combined. Downtown Juneau  is nestled at the base of Mount Juneau and across the channel from Douglas Island. As of the 2010 census, the City and Borough had a population of 31,275. In July 2013, the population estimate from the United States Census Bureau was 32,660, making it the second most populous city in Alaska after Anchorage.(Fairbanks is however the second-largest metropolitan area in the state, with more than 97,000 residents.) Between the months of May and September, Juneau's daily population can increase by roughly 6,000 people from visiting cruise ships.