For how much did the United States buy Alaska from the Russian Empire in 1867?

The United States bought Alaska from the Russian Empire for $7.2 million in 1867.

Secretary of State William H. Seward negotiated the purchase with Russian minister Eduard de Stoeckl. The treaty was signed on March 30, 1867, and the formal transfer took place in Sitka on October 18 of that year.

Russia wanted to sell its North American possessions partly because Alaska was difficult to defend and supply, especially after Russia’s defeat in the Crimean War. In the United States, critics mocked the transaction as “Seward’s Folly” or “Seward’s Icebox,” but the purchase later became recognized as strategically and economically important.

The price was about two cents per acre. Alaska became a U.S. territory in 1912 and joined the Union as the forty-ninth state in 1959. The purchase is distinct from the later acquisition of the nearby Aleutian islands through other historical processes.