Alaska News

Photos: Mount McKinley renamed to Denali

It's official: Denali is now the mountain formerly known as Mt. McKinley.

With the approval of President Barack Obama, Interior Secretary Sally Jewell has signed a "secretarial order" to officially change the name, the White House and Interior Department announced Sunday. The announcement comes roughly 24 hours before Obama touches down in Anchorage for a whirlwind tour of Alaska.

Talk of the name change has swirled in Alaska this year since the National Park Service officially registered no objection in a congressional hearing in Washington, D.C.

The tallest mountain in North America has long been known to Alaskans as Denali, its Koyukon Athabascan name, but its official name was not changed with the creation of Denali National Park and Preserve in 1980, 6 million acres carved out for federal protection under the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act. The state changed the name of the park's tallest mountain to Denali at that time, but the federal government did not.

READ MORE: President Obama OKs renaming of Mount McKinley to Denali

ADVERTISEMENT