 Incorporated as a Unified Home Rule Borough on May 30, 2008, Wrangell was previously a city in the Wrangell-Petersburg Census Area (afterwards renamed the Petersburg Census Area (the Petersburg Borough was formed from part of this census area)).Its Tlingit name is ("Ḵaachx̱ans Little Lake" with "áa-kʼw" 'lake-diminutive').The Tlingit people living in the Wrangell area, who were there centuries before Europeans, call themselves the after the nearby Stikine River.