National Petroleum Reserve–Alaska
The National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska (NPRA) is an area of land on the Alaska North Slope owned by the United States federal government and managed by the Department of the Interior, Bureau of Land Management (BLM). It lies to the west of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, which, as a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service managed National Wildlife Refuge, is also federal land.
At a size of 23,599,999 acres (95,506 square kilometres; 36,875 square miles), the NPRA is the largest tract of undisturbed public land in the United States. Iñupiat live in several villages around its perimeter, the largest of which is Utqiaġvik, the seat of the North Slope Borough. Due to the proximity of Inuit communities, drilling on the NPRA has sparked controversy revolving around the economic, ecological, and cultural importance of the land.
The NPRA is an ecologically very important area for arctic wildlife; For birds, it has been called "Heathrow at the top of the world".