How much did the United States pay Russia for Alaska?

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$7,200,000. The U.S. bought Alaska in 1867 for $7.2 million, about two cents an acre. The press mocked it as "Seward’s Folly" until gold was found three decades later. In today’s money the purchase price is roughly $150 million — less than a single Manhattan penthouse. The per-acre figure in the explanation is the way in: about two cents an acre. Multiply by the area of a very large territory and you get the total, and a price expressed per unit of land is far easier to judge than a nineteenth-century lump sum. The inflation adjustment is what makes it comprehensible: roughly a hundred and fifty million in today's money, less than a single luxury apartment in a major city. A transaction that transferred an area larger than most countries cost less than a penthouse, which is the comparison that conveys it. The reputational detail is the standard lesson: the press mocked it as folly until gold was found three decades later. Asset purchases are judged on information that arrives afterwards, and a decision that looks absurd at the time can be vindicated by a discovery nobody could have priced. The mockery was reasonable given what was known.

Source	U.S. Department of State, Office of the Historian
Figure refers to	1867
Last checked	September 1, 2026
Unit	dollars

How much did the United States pay Russia for Alaska?

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