Anchorage, Alaska (CNN)The shelves at the Red Apple Market are a giveaway. Dried squid. Sambal Olek chili paste. Corned Australian mutton. Canned grass jelly.

Another clue: Ride the crowded No. 45 bus, which meanders down Mountain View Drive, and you hear chatter in seven languages -- none, English.

That these markers of diversity are in a neighborhood in Anchorage may surprise folks from the Lower 48 who picture Alaska as a largely homogenous and snowy American extremity. But Alaskans are quite proud of their distinctive demographics.

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Mountain View, a northeast Anchorage neighborhood, boasts the most diverse census tract in all of America. That's according to University of Alaska sociology professor Chad Farrell, who analyzed the census data.

In fact, Farrell says the country's three most diverse census tracts are all in Anchorage, followed by a handful in Queens, as in New York, which usually tops everyone's diversity guess list.

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