Northern Mariana Islands

The Northern Mariana Islands are a United States commonwealth of 14 islands in the northwestern Pacific, north of Guam. Capitol Hill on Saipan is the seat of government, and most residents live on Saipan, Tinian and Rota.

People from the Philippines settled the Marianas around 1500 to 1400 BC, the first islands of Remote Oceania to be reached, perhaps after the longest open sea voyage made by anyone up to that time. Later waves came from the Caroline Islands and island Southeast Asia, and the Chamorro people built their houses on stone pillars called latte stones. Ferdinand Magellan, sailing for Spain, landed on Guam in 1521 and claimed the archipelago, and in 1668 the missionary Diego Luis de San Vitores named the islands after the Spanish regent Mariana of Austria. Many Chamorro married settlers under Spanish rule.

Spain sold the northern islands to Germany in 1899, while Guam went to the United States, and Japan ruled them under a League of Nations mandate from 1918, planting sugarcane on almost all of Tinian. American forces took Saipan and Tinian in 1944. After the war the islands joined the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands, rejected union with Guam, and became a commonwealth of the United States in 1986, when residents gained US citizenship.

The islands elect a governor and a legislature with a Senate and a House of Representatives, and since 2009 they have sent a non-voting delegate to Congress. Tourism, mostly from Japan, drives the economy, and garment factories worked on Saipan until 2009. Several islands are volcanic, and Mount Agrihan is the highest point at 965 m (3,166 ft).