The Alaska Communities dataset is the reference list of place locations, represented as points, used by the Alaska Division of Community and Regional Affairs (DCRA). In includes community locations but for historical reasons, it is a mix of Communities, Places of Interest, Borough/Census Area as well as Alaska centroid. DCRA uses it to link communities to their internal key GUID used elsewhere in their systems. AEDG uses this list to define canonical community names since, as free text, these can vary in different contexts, and to establish locations to use in spatial joins and relations.

This is an ESRI Shapefile for use in GIS software that contains place data from the 2020 US Census for Alaska. The definition of places includes all incorporated cities as well as Census Designated Places (CDPs). Each geographic unit is identified using Federal Information Processing Standards (FIPS) numbers. Coordinate System: North American Datum 1983 Alaska Albers. Source: 2020 US Census, PL94-171 Redistricting File; 2020 US Census Tiger Shapefiles. Documentation of field names: https://live.laborstats.alaska.gov/cen/maps/gis/Places2020.pdf. The Alaska Department of Labor and Workforce Development has had a cooperative agreement with the U.S. Census Bureau since 1981 to assist with geographic programs and help Alaskans find Census Bureau data. AEDG uses this list to define canonical community locations to use in spatial joins and relations, to associate places with FIPS codes, and to establish total community population.

Current monthly employment data for Alaska is available at https://live.laborstats.alaska.gov/labforce/000000/01/ces.html, but only at the regional level. This data is at the community level and has been visualized in a Geographic Information Systems (GIS) format and is provided as a service in the DCRA Information Portal by the Alaska Department of Commerce, Community, and Economic Development Division of Community and Regional Affairs (SOA DCCED DCRA), Research and Analysis section. SOA DCCED DCRA Research and Analysis is not the authoritative source for this data. AEDG uses this dataset to provide employment figures for communities. However, these data have not been updated since 2016, and there is very little metadata. Previous versions of AEDG used the publicly accessible ALARI database, but that is no longer available.