At 5,959 m (19,551 ft), Yukon's Mount Logan, in Kluane National Park and Reserve, is the highest mountain in Canada and the second-highest on the North American continent (after Denali in the U.S. state of Alaska).

Notable rivers include the Yukon, Pelly, Stewart, Peel, White, Liard, and Tatshenshini.

[14] The territory is the approximate shape of a right triangle, bordering the U.S. state of Alaska to the west and northwest for 1,210 kilometres (752 mi) mostly along longitude 141° W, the Northwest Territories to the east and British Columbia to the south mostly along latitude 60° N.[15] Its northern coast is on the Beaufort Sea.

Mount Logan and a large part of the Yukon's southwest are in Kluane National Park and Reserve, a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

[18] Long before the arrival of Europeans, the central and southern Yukon was populated by First Nations people, and the area escaped glaciation.

Sites of archeological significance in the Yukon hold some of the earliest evidence of the presence of human habitation in North America.

[20] The volcanic eruption of Mount Churchill in approximately 800 AD in what is now the U.S. state of Alaska blanketed the southern Yukon with a layer of ash which can still be seen along the Klondike Highway, and which forms part of the oral tradition of First Nations peoples in the Yukon and further south in Canada.

This drove a population increase that justified the establishment of a police force, just in time for the start of the Klondike Gold Rush in 1897.

[31] The Yukon's major industry is mining (lead, zinc, silver, gold, asbestos and copper).

Thousands of these prospectors moved to the territory, ushering a period of Yukon history recorded by authors such as Robert W. Service and Jack London.

[33][34] On May 1, 2015, the Yukon modified its Business Corporations Act,[35][36][37] in an effort to attract more benefits and participants to its economy.

Another change will allow directors to pursue business opportunities declined by the corporation, a practice off-limits in most other jurisdictions due to the inherent potential for conflicts of interest.

The territory also holds a number of enterprises that allows tourists to experience pre-colonial and modern cultures of Yukon's First Nations and Inuit.

[47] The Yukon has a wide array of cultural and sporting events that attract artists, local residents, and tourists.

The modern comic-book character Yukon Jack depicts a heroic aboriginal persona.

Executive power in the Yukon is formally vested in the Territorial Commissioner,[54] who plays an analogous role to that of a provincial lieutenant governor.

As guarantor of responsible government in the territory, the Commissioner generally acts on the advice of the Premier of Yukon, who commands the confidence of the elected Legislative Assembly.

Unlike lieutenant governors, commissioners are not direct representatives of the King but are instead appointed by the federal government.

[55] The 10th and current premier of Yukon is Ranj Pillai, who represents the electoral district of Porter Creek South as its MLA.

[56] The vast majority of the Yukon's land mass is unorganized, with no defined municipal or otherwise supralocal level of government like in other parts of Canada.

[63] Prior to 1979, the territory was administered by the commissioner who was appointed by the federal Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development.

This change was accomplished through a letter from Jake Epp, Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development, rather than through formal legislation.

In preparation for responsible government, political parties were organized and ran candidates to the Yukon Legislative Assembly for the first time in 1978.

The Progressive Conservatives won these elections and formed the first party government of the Yukon in January 1979.

The Yukon New Democratic Party (NDP) formed the government from 1985 to 1992 under Tony Penikett and again from 1996 under Piers McDonald until being defeated in 2000.

One Yukon MP, Erik Nielsen, served as Deputy Prime Minister under Brian Mulroney, while another, Audrey McLaughlin, was the leader of the federal New Democratic Party (NDP) from 1989 to 1995.

The territory once had an Inuit settlement, located on Herschel Island off the Arctic Ocean coast.

Erik Nielsen Whitehorse International Airport serves as the air transport infrastructure hub, with scheduled direct flights to Calgary, Dawson City, Edmonton, Inuvik, Kelowna, Ottawa, Toronto–Pearson, Vancouver, Victoria, Watson Lake, and Yellowknife.

It was formerly connected to Frankfurt by Condor before the airline temporarily suspended the route in 2023 until completion of runway reconstruction project when services are expected to resume.

Most of the riverboats were owned by the British-Yukon Navigation Company, an arm of the White Pass and Yukon Route, which also operated a narrow-gauge railway between Skagway, Alaska, and Whitehorse.