Mañagaha is a small islet which lies off the west coast of Saipan within its lagoon in the Northern Mariana Islands. Although it has no permanent residents, Mañagaha is popular among Saipan's tourists as a day-trip destination due to its wide sandy beaches and a number of marine activities including snorkeling, parasailing and jet skiing.
Garapan is the largest village and the center of the tourism industry on the island of Saipan, which is a part of the United States Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI). Garapan, as a census-designated place, has an area of 1.2 km² and a population of 3,588.
This is a list of the buildings, sites, districts, and objects listed on the National Register of Historic Places in the Northern Mariana Islands. There currently 37 listed sites spread across the four municipalities of the Northern Mariana Islands. There are no sites listed on any of the islands that make up the Northern Islands Municipality.
Landing Beaches; Aslito/Isely Field & Marpi Point, Saipan Island is a National Historic Landmark District consisting of several discontiguous areas of the island of Saipan in the Northern Mariana Islands. The sites were designated for their association with the Japanese defense of Saipan during World War II, the 1944 Battle of Saipan in which Allied forces captured the island, and the subsequent campaigns which used Saipan as a base. The district includes the landing beaches where the Allies landed, the remnants of Japanese airfields Aslito and Marpi Point, and Isely Field, the Allied airfield built over much of Aslito from which B-29 bombers were used to bomb the Japanese home islands. Included in the Marpi Point area are Suicide Cliff and Banzai Cliff, two locations where significant numbers of Japanese military and civilians jumped to their deaths rather than surrender to advancing forces. The loss of Saipan was a major blow to the Japanese war effort, leading to the resignation of Prime Minister Hideki Tojo, The landmark designation was made in 1985.
The Japanese Lighthouse is an abandoned lighthouse situated atop Navy Hill in Garapan, Saipan, in the Northern Mariana Islands. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1974. The lighthouse is one of the few surviving pre-World War II, civilian structures built by the Japanese.
Suicide Cliff is a cliff above Marpi Point Field near the northern tip of Saipan, Northern Mariana Islands, which achieved historic significance late in World War II.
Banzai Cliff is a historic site at the northern tip of Saipan island in the Northern Mariana Islands, overlooking the Pacific Ocean. Towards the end of the Battle of Saipan in 1944, hundreds of Japanese civilians and soldiers jumped off the cliff to their deaths in the ocean and rocks below, to avoid being captured by the Americans. Not far away, a high cliff named Suicide Cliff overlooks the coastal plain, and was another site of numerous suicides. At Banzai Cliff, some who jumped did not die and were captured by American ships.
The Japanese Jail Historic and Archeological District in Garapan (Saipan), MP, is a historic district that was listed on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places in 2011. The listing included two contributing structures and 15 contributing sites. It includes ruins of a jail that was built in 1930 and was used until 1944.
The Commissioner's Office is a rare surviving example of transitional Spanish-Japanese architecture on the island of Rota in the Northern Mariana Islands, an insular area of the United States in the western Pacific Ocean. It is a single-story structure with walls of manposteria, a construction method adopted during the Spanish period. The window trim consists of ifil lintels, and the building's cornice is Japanese in style. At the time of the building's listing on the National Register of Historic Places in 1981, it was in deteriorated condition, lacking a roof and with one collapsed wall. The structure was built in the 1930s by the local Chamorro people, who had been displaced to that part of the island by Japanese settlement undertaken as part of the South Seas Mandate. The building housed the offices of a local commissioner, or village head responsible to the Japanese authorities. Many buildings built by the Japanese during the mandate period were destroyed in World War II.
The Campaneyan Kriso Rai, also known as the Catholic Belltower, is a historic church tower in Garapan, the largest village on Saipan island in the Northern Mariana Islands. Built in 1932, it is the only element of the island's most prominent Roman Catholic church to survive bombardment in World War II. The tower, a concrete structure 3 metres (9.8 ft) square and 10 metres (33 ft) tall, was built by Spanish Jesuits brought in by the Japanese South Pacific Mandate administration, and stood next to an 1860 wood-frame church.
The Hachiman Jinja is a derelict Shinto shrine off Kagman Road on the island Saipan in the Northern Mariana Islands, and one of the few on those islands to survive relatively intact. The shrine, dedicated to the kami Hachiman, was probably built in the 1930s by the Japanese administration of the South Seas Mandate as part of a program to Japanize the large number of Ryukyuan and Korean workers on the island. The shrine survived the World War II Battle of Saipan in remarkably good condition, although its main torii fell, and two komainu were lost. The main honden received some maintenance in the 1970s, and the property has received some maintenance from a local landholder. As of 2019, it is in total disrepair.
The Japanese 20mm Cannon Blockhouse is one of many relics of World War II on the island of Saipan in the Northern Mariana Islands. It is a concrete blockhouse, semi-circular in shape with a diameter of about 6 metres (20 ft). Its walls are 1.22 metres (4.0 ft) thick with four firing ports large enough to accommodate 20mm cannons, originally equipped with steel sliding shutters. A steel door 25 millimetres (0.98 in) thick provides access to the structure at the rear, sheltered by a concrete wall and covered defensively by a machine gun port. The blockhouse is located near the center of what is locally called Big Agingan Beach, on the south coast of the island, about 20 metres (66 ft) from the shore. It was built in some haste by the Japanese forces defending Saipan in 1944, and was captured by Allied forces early in the Battle of Saipan.
Tachognya, also known as the Blue Site, is a prehistoric village site on the island of Saipan in the Northern Mariana Islands. It is located near the "Blue Beach" landing site of Allied forces in the Battle of Saipan, from which its name is derived. The site consists of ten latte stone house foundations, the largest of which has twelve latte columns and measures 14 by 58 feet.
The Waherak Maihar is a historic outrigger canoe on the island of Saipan in the Northern Mariana Islands. Built in 1958, it is a well-preserved example of a traditional Caroline Islands ocean-going canoe. It is 26 feet (7.9 m) long with a beam of 3 feet (0.91 m). It was constructed by the islanders of Poluwat from native materials, including coconut, pandanus, and breadfruit.
The former Japanese Hospital building on the island of Rota in the Northern Mariana Islands is one of the few remaining Japanese-era buildings on the island. It is a single-story L-shaped concrete structure. When listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1981, it was described as being in derelict condition, being little more than the concrete structure, lacking a roof, windows, and most of its woodwork. The window openings are sheltered by typical Japanese concrete canopies. The building was built by the Japanese about 1930, during the South Seas Mandate period; most Japanese-built structures on Rota were destroyed during World War II.
The Nan'yō Kōhatsu Kabushiki Kaisha complex was the main support base of the Nan'yō Kōhatsu Kabushiki Kaisha (NKKK) on the island Tinian in the Northern Mariana Islands. The NKKK was an economic development company established by the Empire of Japan to develop the territories of the South Seas Mandate, which it oversaw between the First and Second World Wars. In the Northern Marianas, the company aggressively developed arable areas for sugar cane farming, importing workers from Japan, Okinawa, and Korea. Each of the three major islands had major support facility. On Tinian, this area, now roughly where the island's largest community, San Jose is located on the south coast, consisted of an extensive development, most of which was destroyed during the Battle of Tinian in the Second World War. Of this large complex, only four buildings or structures remain, all of which have been listed on the United States National Register of Historic Places, as rare surviving examples of pre-war Japanese architecture on the islands.
The Unai Lagua Japanese Defense Pillbox is one of the more unusual surviving World War II-era Japanese fortifications on the island of Saipan in the Northern Mariana Islands. It is located at the southern end of Unai Lagua, which stretches along the northern shore of the island. The pillbox is fashioned out of poured concrete and coral boulders, and uses natural rock formations as part of its walls. This construction was necessitated by a severe shortage of building materials on the island as the Japanese prepared the island's defenses against the advancing Allied forces in 1943–44. The use of natural materials and terrain had the added benefit of rendering the position nearly invisible to aerial or offshore observation.
The Unai Obyan Latte Site is a prehistoric archaeological site on the island of Saipan in the Northern Mariana Islands. Located near Obyan Beach on the south coast of the island, it is the site of what was once a fairly extensive village, which was significantly disturbed by Japanese defensive preparations during World War II. The site includes the fragmentary remains of a single latte stone house site and a wide scattering of surface-level remains. Excavation of the latte house site in the 1940s by the pioneering archeologist Alexander Spoehr yielded evidence of a length period of occupation. The village at Obyan was documented in early Spanish accounts of the island, and was probably abandoned when the Spanish forcibly relocated the entire island population to Guam in 1698.
The NMI Museum of History and Culture, also known as the NMI Museum, is a museum in Garapan, Saipan hosting exhibitions about the Chamorro and Carolinian people and also displays artifacts, documents, textiles, and photographs from the Spanish, German, Japanese, and American periods in the Northern Mariana Islands. The museum has repatriated a significant number of historic objects from the Marianas that were held nationally and internationally in private collections and by foreign museums, companies, and militaries. More than one million dollars has been invested in its collections. The historical buildings on the grounds have been renovated to preserve them, prevent further deterioration, and safeguard visitors. The museum is located across from Sugar King Park.
