The Mariana Islands are a chain of islands stretching north to south in the northwestern Pacific Ocean. Guam is the largest and southernmost of the islands. Saipan, Tinian, and Rota are the other prinicipal inhabited islands. The Marianas were colonized by Spain beginning in 1668, and they continued under Spanish control until the Spanish-American War of 1898. The U.S. captured and annexed Guam during that war, but Spain transferred the northern islands to Germany. Japan then seized the Northern Marianas from Germany in 1915, during World War I, and moved quickly to establish a naval base on Tinian. The U.S. captured the islands of Saipan and Tinian in very hard fighting in 1944, during World War II.
After the war, the U.S. administered the Northern Marianas along with Palau and the Caroline and Marshall Islands as the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands. In the 1970s, when the U.S. moved to grant independence to these territories, the people of the Northern Marianas decided instead to continue their association with the U.S. as a self-governing commonweath. An agreement in 1975 paved the way for the establishment of the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI) in 1978. The capital of the CNMI is at Garapan on Saipan.
There are no active lighthouses in the islands, but there is a historic Japanese lighthouse at Garapan.
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Garapan Light, Saipan
photo copyright 2006 Paul Sturm; used by permission