Question

50% of the population in Alaska lives within a 50-mile radius of Anchorage. If the total area of Alaska is 586,412 square miles, about what percent of the total land area is within 50 miles of Anchorage? 

I would like to know how to go about solving this problem and the answer.

Answer 1

The whole problem is in the second sentence. The first sentence is interesting,
but it has nothing to do with the actual math question.

The area of a circle is (pi) (radius)² .

The area of a circle with 50-mile radius is (pi) (50)² = 2,500 pi = 7,854 square miles

That's (7,854) / (586,412) = 0.0134 = 1.34% of Alaska's total area.