The Mariana Islands (; also the Marianas; in
Chamorro Chamorro may refer to:
* Chamorro people, the indigenous people of the Mariana Islands in the Western Pacific
* Chamorro language, an Austronesian language indigenous to The Marianas
* Chamorro Time Zone, the time zone of Guam and the Northern Mari ...
: ''Manislan Mariånas'') are a crescent-shaped
archipelago comprising the summits of fifteen longitudinally oriented, mostly
dormant volcanic mountains in the northwestern
Pacific Ocean, between the
12th
12 (twelve) is the natural number following 11 and preceding 13. Twelve is a superior highly composite number, divisible by 2, 3, 4, and 6.
It is the number of years required for an orbital period of Jupiter. It is central to many systems ...
and
21st parallels north and along the
145th meridian east
The meridian 145° east of Greenwich is a line of longitude that extends from the North Pole across the Arctic Ocean, Asia, the Pacific Ocean, Australasia, the Indian Ocean, the Southern Ocean, and Antarctica to the South Pole.
The 145th meridia ...
. They lie south-southeast of Japan, west-southwest of
Hawaii, north of
New Guinea and east of the
Philippines, demarcating the
Philippine Sea
The Philippine Sea is a marginal sea of the Western Pacific Ocean east of the Philippine archipelago (hence the name), the largest in the world, occupying an estimated surface area of . The Philippine Sea Plate forms the floor of the sea. Its ...
's eastern limit. They are found in the northern part of the western
Oceanic sub-region of
Micronesia, and are politically divided into two jurisdictions of the United States: the Commonwealth of the
Northern Mariana Islands and, at the southern end of the chain, the territory of
Guam. The islands were named after the influential Spanish queen
Mariana of Austria following their colonization in the 17th century.
The indigenous inhabitants are the
Chamorro people
The Chamorro people (; also CHamoru) are the indigenous people of the Mariana Islands, politically divided between the United States territory of Guam and the encompassing Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands in Micronesia. Today, signif ...
. Archaeologists in 2013 reported findings which indicated that the people who first settled the Marianas arrived there after making what may have been at the time the longest uninterrupted ocean voyage in human history. They further reported findings which suggested that
Tinian is likely to have been the first island in Oceania to have been settled by humans.
Spanish expeditions, beginning with one by Portuguese explorer
Ferdinand Magellan in the early 16th century, were the first Europeans to arrive; eventually, Spain annexed and colonized the archipelago, establishing their capital on the largest island, Guam. The Marianas were the first islands Magellan encountered after traversing the Pacific from the southern tip of South America. The fruits found there saved the survivors from
scurvy, which had already killed dozens of crewmembers.
Geography
The Mariana Islands are the southern part of a submerged
mountain range that extends from Guam to near Japan. Geographically, the Marianas are part of a larger region called
Micronesia, situated between
13° and
21°N latitude and
144° and
146°E longitude.
The Mariana Islands have a total land area of .
They are composed of two administrative units:
* Guam, a
US territory
* the
Northern Mariana Islands (including the islands of
Saipan
Saipan ( ch, Sa’ipan, cal, Seipél, formerly in es, Saipán, and in ja, 彩帆島, Saipan-tō) is the largest island of the Northern Mariana Islands, a Commonwealth (U.S. insular area), commonwealth of the United States in the western Pa ...
,
Tinian and
Rota
Rota or ROTA may refer to:
Places
* Rota (island), in the Marianas archipelago
* Rota (volcano), in Nicaragua
* Rota, Andalusia, a town in Andalusia, Spain
* Naval Station Rota, Spain
People
* Rota (surname), a surname (including a list of peop ...
), which make up a
Commonwealth of the United States.
The island chain geographically consists of two subgroups, a northern group of ten volcanic main islands, all are currently uninhabited; and a southern group of five coralline limestone islands (Rota, Guam,
Aguijan,
Tinian and
Saipan
Saipan ( ch, Sa’ipan, cal, Seipél, formerly in es, Saipán, and in ja, 彩帆島, Saipan-tō) is the largest island of the Northern Mariana Islands, a Commonwealth (U.S. insular area), commonwealth of the United States in the western Pa ...
), all inhabited except Aguijan. In the northern volcanic group a maximum elevation of about is reached; there are craters showing signs of activity, and earthquakes are not uncommon. Coral reefs fringe the coasts of the southern isles, which are of slight elevation.
The lowest point on the Earth's crust, the
Mariana Trench, is near the islands and is named after them.
Geology
The islands are part of a
geologic structure known as the
Izu–Bonin–Mariana Arc system, and range in age from 5 million years old in the north to 30 million years old in the south (Guam). The island chain arose as a result of the western edge of the
Pacific Plate
The Pacific Plate is an oceanic tectonic plate that lies beneath the Pacific Ocean. At , it is the largest tectonic plate.
The plate first came into existence 190 million years ago, at the triple junction between the Farallon, Phoenix, and Iza ...
moving westward and plunging downward below the
Mariana plate, a region which is the most volcanically active convergent plate boundary on Earth. This
subduction
Subduction is a geological process in which the oceanic lithosphere is recycled into the Earth's mantle at convergent boundaries. Where the oceanic lithosphere of a tectonic plate converges with the less dense lithosphere of a second plate, the ...
region, just east of the island chain, forms the noted
Mariana Trench, the deepest part of the Earth's oceans and lowest part of the surface of the Earth's crust. In this region, according to geologic theory, water trapped in the extensive faulting of the Pacific Plate as
serpentinite, is heated by the higher temperatures of depth during its subduction, the pressure from the expanding steam results in the hydrothermal activity in the area and the volcanic activity which formed the Mariana Islands.
Ecology
All the islands, except
Farallon de Medinilla and
Uracas
Farallón de Pájaros (from Spanish ''Farallón de Pájaros'', meaning "Birds' Sea Stack", see Stack (geology)), also known as Uracus or Urracas (from Spanish ''Urracas'', meaning "Magpies"), is a small (2.3 km2) uninhabited volcanic island, ...
or
Farallon de Pajaros (in the northern group), are more or less densely wooded, and the vegetation is dense, much resembling that of the
Carolines and also of the Philippines, from where species of plants have been introduced. Owing to the moistness of the soil
cryptogams are numerous, as are also most kinds of grasses. On most of the islands there is a plentiful supply of water.
The fauna of the Marianas, though inferior in number and variety, is similar in character to that of the
Carolines and certain species are indigenous to both island groups. The climate though damp is healthy, while the heat, being tempered by the
trade winds, is milder than that of the Philippines; the variations of temperature are not great.
The majority of islands in the Marianas still retain their indigenous names end in the letters -an; e.g.
Guahan (the indigenous name of Guam),
Agrigan
Agrigan is a small island off the southern coast of the island of Guam
Guam (; ch, Guåhan ) is an organized, unincorporated territory of the United States in the Micronesia subregion of the western Pacific Ocean. It is the westernmost poi ...
,
Agrihan,
Aguihan
Aguiguan (also Aguigan and Aguihan, based on the Spanish rendition of the native name, Aguijan, which is still used) is a small bean-shaped coralline island in the Northern Mariana Islands chain in the Pacific Ocean. It is situated south-west of ...
/Aguigan,
Pagan
Paganism (from classical Latin ''pāgānus'' "rural", "rustic", later "civilian") is a term first used in the fourth century by early Christians for people in the Roman Empire who practiced polytheism, or ethnic religions other than Judaism. ...
, Sarigan, etc.
History
Prehistory
The islands are part of a
geologic
Geology () is a branch of natural science concerned with Earth and other astronomical objects, the features or rocks of which it is composed, and the processes by which they change over time. Modern geology significantly overlaps all other Eart ...
structure known as the
Izu–Bonin–Mariana Arc system and range in age from 5 million years old in the north to 30 million years old in the south (Guam). The islands are formed as the highly dense and very old western edge of the Pacific plate plunges downward to form the floor of the Mariana Trench and carries trapped water under the Mariana plate as it does so. This water is super-heated as the plate is carried farther downward and results in the volcanic activity which has formed the arc of Mariana Islands above this
subduction
Subduction is a geological process in which the oceanic lithosphere is recycled into the Earth's mantle at convergent boundaries. Where the oceanic lithosphere of a tectonic plate converges with the less dense lithosphere of a second plate, the ...
region.
The Mariana Islands were the first islands settled by humans in
Remote Oceania
Remote Oceania is the part of Oceania settled within the last 3,000 to 3,500 years, comprising south-eastern Island Melanesia and islands in the open Pacific east of the Solomon Islands: Fiji, Micronesia, New Caledonia, New Zealand, Polynesia, t ...
. Incidentally it is also the first and the longest of the ocean-crossing voyages of the
Austronesian peoples into Remote Oceania, and is separate from the later
Polynesian settlement of the rest of Remote Oceania. They were first settled around 1500 to 1400 BCE by migrants departing from the
Philippines.
Archeological studies of human activity on the islands has revealed potteries with red-slipped, circle-stamped and punctate-stamped designs found in the Mariana Islands dating between 1500 and 1400 BC. These artifacts show similar aesthetics to pottery found in Northern and Central Philippines, the Nagsabaran (
Cagayan Valley) pottery, which flourished during the period between 2000 and 1300 BC.
Comparative and historical linguistics also indicate that the
Chamorro language is most closely related to the
Philippine subfamily of the
Austronesian languages, instead of the
Oceanic subfamily of the languages of the rest of Remote Oceania.
Mitochondrial DNA
Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA or mDNA) is the DNA located in mitochondria, cellular organelles within eukaryotic cells that convert chemical energy from food into a form that cells can use, such as adenosine triphosphate (ATP). Mitochondrial D ...
and
whole genome sequencing of the
Chamorro people
The Chamorro people (; also CHamoru) are the indigenous people of the Mariana Islands, politically divided between the United States territory of Guam and the encompassing Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands in Micronesia. Today, signif ...
strongly support an ancestry from the Philippines. Genetic analysis of pre-
''Latte'' period skeletons in Guam also show that they do not have
Australo-Melanesian ("Papuan") ancestry which rules out origins from the
Bismarck Archipelago
The Bismarck Archipelago (, ) is a group of islands off the northeastern coast of New Guinea in the western Pacific Ocean and is part of the Islands Region of Papua New Guinea. Its area is about 50,000 square km.
History
The first inhabitants o ...
,
New Guinea, or eastern
Indonesia. The
Lapita culture itself (the ancestral branch of the Polynesian migrations) is younger than the first settlement of the Marianas (the earliest Lapita artifacts are dated to around 1350 to 1300 BCE), indicating that they originated from separate migration voyages.
Nevertheless, DNA analysis also show close genetic relationship between ancient settlers of the Marianas and early Lapita settlers in the
Bismarck Archipelago
The Bismarck Archipelago (, ) is a group of islands off the northeastern coast of New Guinea in the western Pacific Ocean and is part of the Islands Region of Papua New Guinea. Its area is about 50,000 square km.
History
The first inhabitants o ...
. This may indicate that both the Lapita culture and the Marianas were settled from direct migrations from the Philippines, or that early settlers from the Marianas voyaged further southwards into the Bismarcks and reconnected with the Lapita people.
The Marianas also later established contact and received migrations from the
Caroline Islands at around the first millennium CE. This brought new pottery styles, language, genes, and the hybrid Polynesian
breadfruit
Breadfruit (''Artocarpus altilis'') is a species of flowering tree in the mulberry and jackfruit family (Moraceae) believed to be a domesticated descendant of ''Artocarpus camansi'' originating in New Guinea, the Maluku Islands, and the Philippi ...
.
The period 900 to 1700 CE of the Marianas, immediately before and during the Spanish colonization, is known as the
''Latte'' period. It is characterized by rapid cultural change, most notably by the massive
megalithic
A megalith is a large stone that has been used to construct a prehistoric structure or monument, either alone or together with other stones. There are over 35,000 in Europe alone, located widely from Sweden to the Mediterranean sea.
The ...
''latte'' stones (also spelled ''latde'' or ''latti''). These were composed of the ''haligi'' pillars capped with another stone called ''tasa'' (which prevented rodents from climbing the posts). These served as supports for the rest of the structure which was made of wood. Remains of structures made with similar wooden posts have also been found. Human graves have also been found in front of ''latte'' structures, The ''Latte'' period was also characterized by the introduction of
rice agriculture, which is unique in the pre-contact
Pacific Islands
Collectively called the Pacific Islands, the islands in the Pacific Ocean are further categorized into three major island groups: Melanesia, Micronesia, and Polynesia. Depending on the context, the term ''Pacific Islands'' may refer to one of se ...
.
The reasons for these changes is still unclear, but it is believed that it may have resulted from a third wave of migrants from
Island Southeast Asia
Maritime Southeast Asia comprises the countries of Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, and East Timor. Maritime Southeast Asia is sometimes also referred to as Island Southeast Asia, Insular Southeast Asia or Oceanic Sout ...
. Comparisons with other architectural traditions makes it likely that this third migration wave were again from the Philippines, or from eastern
Indonesia (either
Sulawesi
Sulawesi (), also known as Celebes (), is an island in Indonesia. One of the four Greater Sunda Islands, and the world's eleventh-largest island, it is situated east of Borneo, west of the Maluku Islands, and south of Mindanao and the Sulu Ar ...
or
Sumba
Sumba ( id, Pulau Sumba) is an island in eastern Indonesia. It is one of the Lesser Sunda Islands and is in the province of East Nusa Tenggara. Sumba has an area of , and the population was 779,049 at the 2020 Census; the official estimate as a ...
), all of which have a tradition of raised buildings with capstones. Interestingly, the word ''haligi'' ("pillar") is also used in various languages throughout the Philippines; while the Chamorro word ''guma'' ("house") closely resembles the Sumba word ''uma''.
Spanish exploration and control
The first Europeans to see the island group were a Spanish expedition, who on March 6, 1521, observed a string of islands and sailed between two of them during a
Spanish expedition of world circumnavigation under the command of Ferdinand Magellan. Historically, the southern village of
Umatac, Guam has been credited as the site of the Spanish landing. As confirmation, a scholarly study of the navigator's diary, now kept in preservation in the
Philippines, revealed a drawing of the islands with a tiny island to the south of a much larger island above it. The described placement of the islands confirms that Magellan had actually sailed between Guam and
Cocos Island, and not Guam and
Rota
Rota or ROTA may refer to:
Places
* Rota (island), in the Marianas archipelago
* Rota (volcano), in Nicaragua
* Rota, Andalusia, a town in Andalusia, Spain
* Naval Station Rota, Spain
People
* Rota (surname), a surname (including a list of peop ...
, as some originally thought. Especially since the Northern areas of Guam do not have safe coves or harbors to anchor. Moreover, the waters of Northern Guam are oftentimes more rough and the currents are even more treacherous in comparison to the safer coves and currents seen throughout South-Western side of Guam.
Regardless of where they landed, Spanish ships arrived in Guam and were unable to get fresh food as the inhabitants,
Chamorros, "entered the ships and stole whatever they could lay their hands on", including "the small boat that was fastened to the poop of the flagship."
The Spanish crew, in retaliation, attacked the Chamorros and dubbed the islands Islas de los Ladrones (Islands of the Thieves). "Those people are poor, but ingenious and very thievish, on account of which we called those three islands the islands of Ladrones."
[ Pigafetta writes,
]And the captain-general wished to approach the largest of these three islands to replenish his provisions. But it was not possible, for the people of those islands entered the ships and robbed us so that we could not protect ourselves from them. And when we wished to strike and take in the sails so as to land, they stole very quickly the small boat called a skiff which was fastened to the poop of the captain's ship. At which he, being very angry, went ashore with forty armed men. And burning some forty or fifty houses with several boats and killing seven men of the said island, they recovered their skiff.
Pigafetta also described the boats the inhabitants used, the sail shaped like a "lateen sail" (actually the crab claw sail), hence the name Islas de las Velas Latinas (Islands of the Lateen Sails),[ the name used first as Magellan claimed them for the Spanish crown. San Lazarus archipelago, Jardines ('gardens') and Prazeres are among the names applied to them by later navigators.
In 1667, Spain formally claimed them, established a regular colony there and in 1668 gave the islands the official title of ''Las Marianas'', in honor of Spanish Queen Mariana of Austria, widow of King Philip IV of Spain and Queen Regent of the Spanish Empire ruling during the minority of her son King Charles II. They then had a population of more than 50,000 inhabitants. With the arrival of passengers and settlers aboard the Manila Galleons from the Americas, new ]diseases
A disease is a particular abnormal condition that negatively affects the structure or function of all or part of an organism, and that is not immediately due to any external injury. Diseases are often known to be medical conditions that ar ...
were introduced in the islands, which caused many deaths in the native Chamorro Chamorro may refer to:
* Chamorro people, the indigenous people of the Mariana Islands in the Western Pacific
* Chamorro language, an Austronesian language indigenous to The Marianas
* Chamorro Time Zone, the time zone of Guam and the Northern Mari ...
population. The native population, who referred to themselves as ''Taotao Tano'' (people of the land)[Warheit, Vaness]
"The Insular Empire: America in the Mariana Islands."
PBS (documentary). Accessed June 2012. but were known to the early Spanish colonists as ''Chamurres'' or ''HachaMori'', eventually died out as a distinct people, though their descendants intermarried. At the Spanish occupation in 1668, the Chamorros were estimated at 50,000, but a century later only 1,800 natives remained, as the majority of the population was of mixed Spanish-Chamorro blood or mestizo
(; ; fem. ) is a term used for racial classification to refer to a person of mixed Ethnic groups in Europe, European and Indigenous peoples of the Americas, Indigenous American ancestry. In certain regions such as Latin America, it may also r ...
. They were characteristic Micronesians
The Micronesians or Micronesian peoples are various closely related ethnic groups native to Micronesia, a region of Oceania in the Pacific Ocean. They are a part of the Austronesian ethnolinguistic group, which has an Urheimat in Taiwan.
Ethno ...
, with a considerable civilization. In the island of Tinian are some remarkable remains attributed to them, consisting of two rows of massive square stone columns, about broad and high, with heavy-round capitals
Capital may refer to:
Common uses
* Capital city, a municipality of primary status
** List of national capital cities
* Capital letter, an upper-case letter Economics and social sciences
* Capital (economics), the durable produced goods used f ...
called latte stones. According to early Spanish accounts cinerary urns were found embedded in the capitals.
When Spanish settlement started on 14 June 1668, they were subordinate to the Mexican colony (soon viceroyalty) of New Spain
New Spain, officially the Viceroyalty of New Spain ( es, Virreinato de Nueva España, ), or Kingdom of New Spain, was an integral territorial entity of the Spanish Empire, established by Habsburg Spain during the Spanish colonization of the Am ...
, until 1817, when they became subordinated to the Philippines, like the bulk of the Spanish East Indies.
Research in the archipelago was carried out by Commodore Anson, who in August 1742 landed upon the island of Tinian. The Ladrones were visited by Byron in 1765, Wallis in 1767 and Crozet in 1772.
The Marianas and specifically the island of Guam were a stopover for Spanish galleons en route from Acapulco
Acapulco de Juárez (), commonly called Acapulco ( , also , nah, Acapolco), is a city and major seaport in the state of Guerrero on the Pacific Coast of Mexico, south of Mexico City. Acapulco is located on a deep, semicircular bay and has bee ...
, Mexico to Manila, Philippines in a convoy known as the Galeon de Manila. Following the 1872 Cavite mutiny
The Cavite mutiny ( es, El Motín de Cavite) of 1872 was an uprising of Filipino military personnel of Fort San Felipe, the Spanish arsenal in Cavite, Philippine Islands (then also known as part of the Spanish East Indies) on 20 January 1872. A ...
, several Filipinos were exiled to Guam, including the father of Pedro Paterno, Maximo Paterno, Dr. Antonio M. Regidor y Jurado and Jose Maria Basa.
The islands were a popular port of call for British and American whaling ships in the 19th century. The first such visit on record was that of the '' Resource'' to Guam in October 1799. The last known visit was made by the American whaler ''Charles W. Morgan'' in February 1904.
Loss from Spain and split in governance
The Marianas remained a Spanish colony under the general government of the Philippines until 1898, when, as a result of its loss in the Spanish–American War, Spain ceded Guam to the United States. Guam has been separate from the Northern Marianas since this time. Following the Philippine–American War
The Philippine–American War or Filipino–American War ( es, Guerra filipina-estadounidense, tl, Digmaang Pilipino–Amerikano), previously referred to as the Philippine Insurrection or the Tagalog Insurgency by the United States, was an arm ...
, Apolinario Mabini and other Filipino leaders were exiled to Guam in 1901.
Weakened from its defeat in the Spanish–American War, Spain could no longer effectively control and protect the nearly 6,000 islands it retained throughout Micronesia, including the Northern Marianas, Carolines and Pelew Islands. Therefore, Spain entered into the German-Spanish Treaty of February 12, 1899 to sell the Northern Marianas and its other remaining islands to Germany for 837,500 German gold marks (about $4,100,000 at the time). The Northern Marianas and other island groups were incorporated by Germany as a small part of the larger German Protectorate of New Guinea
German New Guinea (german: Deutsch-Neu-Guinea) consisted of the northeastern part of the island of New Guinea and several nearby island groups and was the first part of the German colonial empire. The mainland part of the territory, called , ...
. The total population in the Northern Marianas portion of these islands was only 2,646 inhabitants around this time, with the ten most northerly islands being actively volcanic and thus mostly uninhabited.
Japan, allied with the Entente Powers during World War I, seized all of Germany's colonial possessions in East Asia and Micronesia, including the Northern Mariana Islands, and held them through the end of the war. Under the terms of the Treaty of Versailles in 1919, Germany was stripped of all her colonies worldwide, including the Palau, Caroline, Northern Mariana and Marshall Islands. By international agreement, these were all placed into trusteeship under the management of League of Nations which assigned them to Japan as the Class C South Seas Mandate
The South Seas Mandate, officially the Mandate for the German Possessions in the Pacific Ocean Lying North of the Equator, was a League of Nations mandate in the "South Seas" given to the Empire of Japan by the League of Nations following Wo ...
. During this time, Japan used some of the islands for sugarcane
Sugarcane or sugar cane is a species of (often hybrid) tall, Perennial plant, perennial grass (in the genus ''Saccharum'', tribe Andropogoneae) that is used for sugar Sugar industry, production. The plants are 2–6 m (6–20 ft) tall with ...
production, modestly increasing the population of a few of the islands.
World War II
The island chain saw significant fighting during World War II. Guam, a possession of the United States since 1898, was captured by Japan
Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...
in an attack from the Northern Mariana Islands that began on the day of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor (December 8, 1941, the same time as the Pearl Harbor attack across the International Date Line). In 1944, the United States captured the Mariana Islands chain from Japan: the Northern Mariana Islands were desired by the U.S. as bombing
A bomb is an explosive weapon that uses the exothermic reaction of an explosive material to provide an extremely sudden and violent release of energy. Detonations inflict damage principally through ground- and atmosphere-transmitted mechanica ...
bases to reach the Japanese mainland, with the invasion of Saipan being launched for that reason in June before the U.S. even moved to recapture Guam; a month later the U.S. recaptured Guam and captured Tinian. Once captured, Saipan
Saipan ( ch, Sa’ipan, cal, Seipél, formerly in es, Saipán, and in ja, 彩帆島, Saipan-tō) is the largest island of the Northern Mariana Islands, a Commonwealth (U.S. insular area), commonwealth of the United States in the western Pa ...
and Tinian's islands were used extensively by the United States military as they finally put mainland Japan within a round-trip range of American B-29 bombers
The Boeing B-29 Superfortress is an American four-engined propeller-driven heavy bomber, designed by Boeing and flown primarily by the United States during World War II and the Korean War. Named in allusion to its predecessor, the B-17 Fl ...
. In response, Japanese forces attacked the bases on Saipan and Tinian from November 1944 to January 1945. At the same time and afterwards, the United States Army Air Forces based on these islands conducted an intense strategic bombing campaign against the Japanese cities of military and industrial importance, including Tokyo, Nagoya, Osaka, Kobe
Kobe ( , ; officially , ) is the capital city of Hyōgo Prefecture Japan. With a population around 1.5 million, Kobe is Japan's seventh-largest city and the third-largest port city after Tokyo and Yokohama. It is located in Kansai region, whic ...
, and others. Both the ''Enola Gay
The ''Enola Gay'' () is a Boeing B-29 Superfortress bomber, named after Enola Gay Tibbets, the mother of the pilot, Colonel Paul Tibbets. On 6 August 1945, piloted by Tibbets and Robert A. Lewis during the final stages of World War II, it be ...
'' and the ''Bockscar
''Bockscar'', sometimes called Bock's Car, is the name of the United States Army Air Forces B-29 bomber that dropped a Fat Man nuclear weapon over the Japanese city of Nagasaki during World War II in the secondand most recent nuclear attack in ...
'' (which dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima
is the capital of Hiroshima Prefecture in Japan. , the city had an estimated population of 1,199,391. The gross domestic product (GDP) in Greater Hiroshima, Hiroshima Urban Employment Area, was US$61.3 billion as of 2010. Kazumi Matsui h ...
and Nagasaki, respectively) flew their missions from Tinian's North Field.
According to Werner Gruhl: "Mariana Island historians estimate that 10 percent of Guam's some 20,000 population were killed by violence, most by the Japanese Imperial Army and Navy."
Post World War II
The direct result of World War II on the Mariana Islands was that, after the war, the Northern Mariana Islands came under the control of the United States in the same way they had earlier come under the control of Japan
Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...
after World War I. However, this time they became part of the U.S.-administered Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands (TTPI) established pursuant to Security Council Resolution 21. The Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands later became a U.S. territory
In the United States, a territory is any extent of region under the sovereign jurisdiction of the federal government of the United States, including all waters (around islands or continental tracts). The United States asserts sovereign rights for ...
following its exit from the TTPI pursuant to Security Council Resolution 683. Although now both under U.S. control, the Northern Mariana Islands are separate from Guam. Efforts at reunification have failed in part due to residual post-war tensions resulting from the very different histories of Guam (occupied by Japan for only 31 months, in wartime) and the Northern Mariana Islands (more peacefully occupied by Japan, for about 30 years).
List of islands
Tourism
Tourism in the Northern Marianas is split mainly between Filipino, Japanese, American, Korean, Taiwanese and Chinese tourists. There are several large tour operators in Saipan that cater to Asian tourists coming into the island. By far, the majority of tourism in the Northern Marianas is in Guam. Several flights a day land in Guam, mostly in the early hours between 1:00 AM and 3:30 AM. With the close of the garment industries in the Northern Marianas, tourism has grown slowly and is now a major part of the economy of the CNMI.
Amateur radio operators conduct DXpeditions to the Islands at intervals.
Cuisine
Common dishes in the Mariana Islands include red rice, meat or poultry on the grill or in coconut milk, chicken kelaguen, apigigi (young coconut
The coconut tree (''Cocos nucifera'') is a member of the palm tree family ( Arecaceae) and the only living species of the genus ''Cocos''. The term "coconut" (or the archaic "cocoanut") can refer to the whole coconut palm, the seed, or the ...
with cassava paste wrapped in banana leaf),"Apigigi' or Sweet Tamales"
(Aug. 10, 2013) Annie's Chamorro Kitchen and tropical fruits.
See also
* Rail transport on the Mariana Islands
Rail transport on the Mariana Islands was mainly related to the transport of sugar cane and military supplies by narrow gauge railways.
Saipan
Japanese business man, Haruji Matsue, that introduced sugar cane farms and narrow gauge railways to ...
* Apostolic Prefecture of Mariana Islands
* Lists of islands
This is a list of the lists of islands in the world grouped by country, by continent, by body of water
A body of water or waterbody (often spelled water body) is any significant accumulation of water on the surface of Earth or another plane ...
References
Citations
Sources
Pascal Horst Lehne and Christoph Gäbler: ''Über die Marianen.'' Lehne-Verlag, Wohldorf in Germany 1972
* L. de Freycinet, ''Voyage autour du monde'' (Paris, 1826–1844)
* The Marianas Islands in ''Nautical Magazsile'', xxxiv., xxxv. (London, 1865–1866)
* 0. Finsch, ''Karolinen und Marianen'' (Hamburg, 1900); Costenoble, Die Marianen in Globus, lxxxviii. (1905)
; Encyclopedic sources
*
*
External links
{{Authority control
Chamorro people
Divided regions
Former Spanish colonies
Geography of Guam
Geography of Micronesia
Geography of the Northern Mariana Islands
Spanish East Indies
Archipelagoes of the United States