Today Alaska Natives represent approximately 16 percent of Alaska's residents, and are a significant segment of the population in over 200 rural villages and communities. Many Alaska Natives have retained their customs, language, hunting and fishing practices and ways of living since "the creation times."

Alaska's Native people are divided into eleven distinct cultures, speaking twenty different languages. In order to the tell the stories of this diverse population, the Alaska Native Heritage Center is organized based on five cultural groupings, which draw upon cultural similarities or geographic proximity: