Saipan, Northern Marianas Islands...and our turquoise Saipan lagoon!

The capital of the Northern Marianas Islands, the Island of Saipan, is an enchanting tranquil tropical paradise island of unimaginable beauty; highlighted by turquoise crystal water, fire red sunsets, panoramic views, and unparalleled weather. Saipan's 10k+ voters have hosted 3/4 million tourists in a single year, entirely from East Asian, making Saipan a playground of seaside golf, scuba diving, sport fishing, snorkeling, para sailing, wind surfing, kayaking, biking, beach volleyball, or barbecuing on the remote pristine beaches. The laid back nature of the inhabitants is as legendary as the tropical breezes.

The Commonwealth's center of government is in the village of Capital Hill on Saipan. As the island is governed as a single municipality, most publications name Saipan as the Commonwealth's capital.

Climate

The islands have a tropical marine climate moderated by seasonal northeast trade winds. There is little seasonal temperature variation. The dry season runs from December to June, and the rainy season from July to November and can include typhoons. The rainy season seems exagerated to residents as most of it falls as night rains between the hours of 3am and 6am, meaning it is another day in paradise after the morning sun peeks over Mt Tapachau. The Guinness Book of World Records has cited Saipan as having the most equable temperature in the world.

The first European exploration of the area was in 1521 by famed traveller Ferdinand Magellan, who is credited with landing on nearby Guam (historical trivia that Micronesian Traveller Dane Hodges doesn’t find reasonable or believable) and claimed the islands for Spain.

The Spanish ships were met offshore by the native Chamorro, who delivered refreshments and then helped themselves to a small boat belonging to Magellan's fleet. This led to a cultural clash, since in Chamorro tradition there was little private property and taking something one needed, such as a boat for fishing, was not considered stealing. The Spanish did not understand this custom. The Spanish fought against the local Chamorro until the boat was recovered. The Spanish then gave the archipelago the name Islas de los Ladrones ("Islands of the Thieves"). Right is a Saipan beach barbeque circa 1899 

Letters by two surviving crew members of that memorable journey indicate that Magellan's fleet came through a channel ("high island to the north and low island south") circling south to the west side of the low island (which must be Tinian) and later proceeded south to what may have been Rota or Guam and encountered the inhabitants. No sailor would call the pass between Rota and Guam a channel, and even if they did, they wouldn’t have called Rota the high island to the North.

You can only see the shores of Guam from the east harbor of Sosanhaya Bay on a clear day; it is not visible from the western shores of Rota at all. There is nothing south of Guam so saying they ventured between Rota and Guam and settled on the western shore of the southern island and later sailed further south isn’t reasonable.

The logical assumption is that Magellan and his starving crew sailed through the Tinian, or Saipan Channel and turned south to the western shore of Tinian, later moving south to Rota or Guam. And Rota is more probable because a galleon could anchor outside Rota’s western reef (near where the Santa Margarita sank) and go to shore without a dingy as that lagoon is shallow and only 50 meters from the beach.


Whether Guam or Rota, three days after he had been welcomed on his arrival, Magellan fled the archipelago under attack. In 1565 Miguel López de Legazpi arrived in Guam and took possession of the islands in the name of the Spanish Crown. The islands were to be ruled from the Philippines as part of the Spanish East Indies until 1898. A Royal Palace was built in Guam for the Spanish governor of the islands. Its ruins can still be seen.

Guam was an important stop-over for the Manila Galleons, a convoy of ships carrying passengers and cargo such as silver, plants and animals from Acapulco (Mexico) to Manila. On the return trip from the Philippines to Mexico, the galleons did not call at Guam as the eastern winds were farther north, near the coast of Japan.

German and Japanese possessionFollowing the Spanish–American War of 1898, Spain ceded Guam to the United States and sold the remainder of the Marianas (along with the Caroline and Marshall Islands) to Imperial Germany.

Early in World War I, Japan took the opportunity to declare war on Germany and invaded the Northern Marianas, hoping to annex them. In 1919, the League of Nations, precursor of the United Nations, awarded the islands to Japan by a mandate. During Japan's occupation, sugar cane became the main industry of the islands, and labor was imported from Japan and associated colonies (especially Okinawa and Korea). In the census of December 1939, the total population of the South Pacific Mandate was 129,104, of which 77,257 were Japanese (including ethnic Taiwanese and Koreans).

Hours after the Attack on Pearl Harbor, Japanese forces from the Marianas launched an invasion of Guam on December 8, 1941. Chamorros from the Northern Marianas, then under Japanese rule for more than two decades, were brought to Guam to assist the Japanese administration. This, combined with the harsh treatment of Guamanian Chamorros during the 31-month occupation, created a rift that would become the main reason Guamanians rejected the reunification referendum approved by the Northern Marianas in the 1960s.

American Invasion

Near the end of World War II, the United States military invaded the Mariana Islands on June 15, 1944, beginning with the Battle of Saipan, which ended on July 9 with the Japanese commander committing seppuku (a traditional Japanese form of ritual suicide). Of the 30,000 Japanese troops that defended Saipan, fewer than 1,000 remained alive at battle's end. U.S. forces then recaptured Guam beginning July 21 and invaded Tinian (see Battle of Tinian) on July 24, which provided the take off point for the Enola Gay, the plane dropping the atomic bomb on Hiroshima a year later. Rota was left untouched (and isolated) until the Japanese surrender in August 1945, due to its military insignificance.

The war did not end for everyone with the signing of the armistice. The lastgroup of Japanese soldiers surrendered on Saipan on December 1, 1945. On Guam, Japanese soldier Shoichi Yokoi hid out in the village of Talofofo until 1972.

Between the end of the invasion and the Japanese surrender, the Saipan and Tinian populations were kept in concentration camps. Japanese nationals were eventually repatriated, and the indigenous Chamorro and Carolinians returned to the land.

1980 16,780 77.8%

1990 43,345 158.3%

2000 69,221 59.7%

2010 53,883 −22.2%



Under the Covenant, in general, United States federal law applies to CNMI. However, the CNMI is outside the customs territory of the United States and, although the internal revenue code does apply in the form of a local income tax, the income tax system is largely locally determined. According to the Covenant, the federal minimum wage and federal immigration laws "will not apply to the Northern Mariana Islands except in the manner and to the extent made applicable to them by the Congress by law after termination of the Trusteeship Agreement." The local control of minimum wage was superseded by the United States Congress in 2007.

Specifically, CNRA § 702(a) amended the Covenant to state that “the provisions of the ‘immigration laws’ (as defined in section 101(a) of the Immigration and Nationality Act (8 U.S.C. 1101(a)) shall apply to the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands.”2 Further, under CNRA § 702(a), the “immigration laws,” as well as the amendments to the Covenant, “shall . . . supersede and replace all laws, provisions, or programs of the Commonwealth relating to the admission of aliens and the removal of aliens from the Commonwealth.”



Transition to U.S. Immigration Law began November 28, 2009 in the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI). CNMI's immigration laws have been replaced by the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) and other U.S. immigration laws.



Agricultural production, primarily of tapioca, cattle, coconuts, breadfruit, tomatoes, and melons, exists, but is relatively unimportant in the economy



OFFICIAL NAME: Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands. The Commonwealth is a 14 island chain. Three islands are inhabited, Saipan, Rota and Tinian.
POPULATION: Approximately 53,000 total as of 2010 census.
CITIZENSHIP: United States
OFFICIAL LANGUAGES: English, Chamorro, and Carolinian
RELIGION: No official religion, although the population is predominantly Catholic. Buddhism, Islam, Christianity, Ba'hai and non-denominational services can be found throughout the island of Saipan.

CURRENCY: U.S. Dollar
ELECTRICITY: Single Phase 60 Cycles 115/230 Volts AC
HEALTH SERVICES: Provided by the Commonwealth Health Center. Full service medical care. Private health clinics are availble on Saipan
ZIP CODE: 96950
TELEPHONES: (Area Code:670) The Commonwealth is part of the North American Numbering Plan. Dial -1- followed by the area code and the number from anywhere in the United States.
POSTAL SERVICE: The United States Postal Service provides daily mail service at regular postal rates.
WEATHER: The Marianas enjoys the most consistent climate in the world, averaging 82 degrees Fahrenheit year-round. Weather information may be obtained at the National Weather Service.

GOLF

SCUBA DIVING