Where is saipan northern mariana islands

The Spanish operation of the islands led to conflict over several decades. Many of the islands' native population died from violent encounters with the Spanish; many more died from diseases brought by the Spanish. It is believed that there were 50, islanders at the beginning of European contact and only 1, - 2, by the year The remaining islanders, now called Chamorros, intermarried with the Spanish garrisons made up of Mexicans, Filipinos and Spanish troops.

Nearly all of them had been moved to Guam and converted to Catholicism. To facilitate cultural and religious assimilation, Spanish colonists forced the Chamorros to be concentrated on Guam for a period of time. During this time, a group of Carolinians from present-day eastern Yap State and western Chuuk State were allowed to settle on Saipan and formed the base of the second indigenous ethnic group in the Northern Marianas.

Consequently Carolinians and Chamorros are both considered as indigenous to the Northern Marianas and both languages are official in the commonwealth. The Germans, never more than 20 officials in all of the islands, introduced scientific agriculture and the western concept of land ownership.

Japan settled thousands of civilians in the islands 20, in the Northern Marianas alone who were primarily engaged in commercial fishing and sugar cane production. The islands became crucial to the Pacific Theater in World War II and some of the bloodiest battles of the war were fought in the Marianas between American and Japanese troops. The only atomic weapons ever to be used in warfare were launched by B29s taking off from the island of Tinian in August of After the Japanese surrender in , the American Navy administered the islands until they were turned over to the United Nations as the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands.

Under the principles of the Trusteeship Agreement and American administration, the islands gradually regained their rights to self-government and the Northern Marianas chose to become a part of the American political family by popular vote in The rest of the Trust Territory, administered as a single unit since divided into the Republic of the Marshall Islands, the Federated States of Micronesia and the Republic of Palau.

After Japan's defeat, the islands were administered by the United States as part of the United Nations Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands; thus, defense and foreign affairs became the responsibility of the U. The people of the Northern Mariana Islands decided in the s not to seek independence, but instead to forge closer links with the United States.

Negotiations for territorial status began in A covenant to establish a commonwealth in political union with the U. A new government and constitution went into effect in Similar to other U. Senate, but are represented in the U. House of Representatives by a delegate beginning January for the NMI who may vote in committee but not on the House floor.

From a fisheries perspective, the northern islands and more distant banks and reefs appear to be in better condition than those closer to population centers. Assessing relative resilience potential of coral reefs to inform management in the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands. Potential larval sources, destinations, and self-seeding in the Mariana Archipelago documented using ocean drifters Journal of Oceanography, Coral reef disturbance and recovery dynamics differ across gradients of localized stressors in the Mariana Islands.

Coral reef resilience to climate change in Saipan, CNMI; field-based assessments and implications for vulnerability and future management.

Environmental factors affecting large-bodied coral reef fish assemblages in the Mariana Archipelago. States, Territories, and Commonwealths. Pacific Islands. A colony of A. Copyright Douglas Fenner. Laolao Bay Conservation Action Plan ReefBase Coral Bleaching Reports.

Our LaoLao Campaign. The Marine Protected Areas Inventory. Federal MPA Legislation. Over the next hundred years, European explorers traded with the locals on their stopovers to Asia. But the traders also brought diseases to the islands, killing many Indigenous people. In , the Spanish established a colony on these islands including Guam and named them Las Marianas, after the Spanish Queen Mariana. During World War I in , the Japanese navy took control of the islands.

The islands are the peaks of a massive underwater mountain range that begins in the deepest part of the ocean called the Mariana Trench. The mountain range which became the islands was created by volcanoes over millions of years, and some are still active today.

For instance, the government evacuated the island of Pagan in after an eruption; no one has lived there since. And a eruption on the island of Anatahan lasted nearly a year. The waters around the Northern Mariana Islands are home to five endangered whale species: blue whales , fin whales, humpback whales, sei whales, and sperm whales.

Dugongs—sea mammals related to manatees —also swim around the islands. The official bird of the Northern Mariana Islands is the Mariana fruit dove, a green fruit-eating bird that lives nowhere else on Earth. Even the most populated island, Saipan, is almost 80 percent forest. Plants such as banana trees, palm trees, ferns, pine trees, and plumeria trees which have the official flower cover the islands. About half the population is of Asian descent, and most others are native to the Pacific Islands which includes Chamorro people or a mix of different races.