Nome (pop. 3,699) is the transportation and commercial hub for northwestern Alaska. It lies 140 miles (225 kilometers) south of the Arctic Circle on the southern coast of the Seward Peninsula. It faces Norton Sound of the Bering Sea. Nome can be reached only by water or air because no paved roads link it to any other communities.
An Inuit group known as the Iñupiat make up about half of Nome’s people. Many hunt and fish for much of their food. Nome is the finish for the annual Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race. The race honors a heroic dog sled run through blizzards and extremely low temperatures to deliver diphtheria serum during a 1925 epidemic (see Balto).
Major industries in Nome include mining for gold and other minerals, local and state government, oil and gas development, tourism, commercial reindeer herding, and Inuit arts and crafts. The Nome Nugget, first published in 1900, is Alaska’s oldest newspaper.
Gold was discovered near Nome in 1898. In 1900, Nome’s population reached 12,500, making it the Alaska region’s largest city at the time. Nome was incorporated in 1901. The city is named for Cape Nome, which supposedly got its name when a mapmaker misread the term ? name on a chart and recorded it as C. Nome, or Cape Nome.
