Saipan

Saipan is the largest island and capital of the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, an unincorporated United States territory in the western Pacific about 120 miles north of Guam. Ruled in turn by Spain, Germany and Japan, it was the site of the Battle of Saipan in 1944 before becoming part of the United States-administered Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands, formally joining the United States as a commonwealth in 1978, with residents gaining citizenship in 1986. Saipan holds about ninety percent of the territory's population, recorded at 43,385 in the 2020 census, with Chamorro and Carolinian Pacific Islanders and Filipino and other Asian residents forming its largest communities.