Capital: Capitol Hill, Saipan
Size: 183.5 sq. mi. (Philadelphia is 141.7 sq. mi.)
Currency: US Dollar
Flight: $2,000 (+) Newark to Saipan, 26h, 35mins, 2 stops
Current Date/Time: (+14 hours) 3:15am Friday April 13
Current Weather: 87 degrees, 75% humidity, isolated thunderstorms
CLICK HERE TO LEARN ABOUT THE NORTHERN MARIANA ISLANDS
CLICK HERE FOR A VIDEO OF THE HISTORY OF THE NORTHERN MARIANA ISLANDS
CLICK HERE FOR A VIDEO OF THE HISTORY OF THE NORTHERN MARIANA ISLANDS
The first people of the Mariana Islands immigrated at some point between 4000 BC and 2000 BC from Southeast Asia. After first contact with Spaniards, they eventually became known as the Chamorros, a Spanish word similar to Chamori, the name of the indigenous caste system's higher division.
The ancient people of the Marianas raised colonnades of megalithic capped pillars called latte stones upon which they built their homes. The Spanish reported that by the time of their arrival, the largest of these were already in ruins, and that the Chamorros believed the ancestors who had erected the pillars lived in an era when people possessed supernatural abilities.
Archeologists in 2013 posited that the first people to settle in the Marianas may have made what was at that point the longest uninterrupted ocean-crossing voyage in human history, and that archeological evidence indicates that Tinian might have been the first Pacific island outside of Asia to be settled
