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 principal 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 all the other 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. During World War II the U.S. captured the islands of Saipan and Tinian in very hard fighting in 1944. 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 on Saipan; the population of the commonwealth is about 55,000. Navigational aids in the Northern Marianas are maintained by the U.S. Coast Guard Sector Guam. ARLHS numbers are from the ARLHS World List of Lights. Admiralty numbers are from volume M of the Admiralty List of Lights & Fog Signals. U.S. NGA List numbers are from Publication 111. USCG numbers are from Volume VI of the U.S. Coast Guard Light List.
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![]() Tanapag Harbor Range Rear Light, Saipan, June 2014 Google Maps street view |
Information available on lost lighthouses:
Notable faux lighthouses:
Adjoining pages: North: Nanpō Islands | South: Guam
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Posted August 28, 2005. Checked and revised September 2, 2024. Lighthouses: 3. Site copyright 2024 Russ Rowlett and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.