Division Programs - Formula
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Project Overview
Background Information: The Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI) is the newest member of the United States, having entered into a political union with the US in 1976, being one of the most diverse, distant, and isolated entities. Geologically volcanic in origin, the 14 tropical islands comprising the CNMI archipelago stretch north south across 400 miles in the western Pacific Ocean, with a total land area of 183.5 square miles. The Mariana Islands formed by undersea volcanoes is located along the Mariana Trench, with the world’s greatest known ocean depth of 35,810 feet. The CNMI is located approximately 3,300 miles west of Honolulu, 1,272 miles south of Tokyo, 3,090 miles north of Sydney, and 125 miles north of Guam. The commonwealth’s population lives primarily on three islands; Saipan, the largest and most populated island, is 12.5 miles long and 5.5 miles wide. The other two populated islands are Tinian and Rota, which lie between Saipan and Guam. The nine far northern islands are very sparsely inhabited with a combined population of 6 people in 2000. In the 2000 census, the total population in the CNMI was 69,221, with approximately 90 percent living in Saipan and 5 percent each in Tinian and Rota. The CNMI’s population by ethnic groups taken from the 2000 census is as follows: 52% Asian, 34%CNMI descent (indigenous Chamorro and Carolinian people), 8% Pacific Islander, and 6% Other. Chamorro and Carolinian are considered the two ethnic groups indigenous to the CNMI. Additionally, the “Compacts of Free Association” permit the free movement of people between the freely associated states, flag territories, Hawai’i and the mainland United States. Foreign contract workers from Asia (primarily Chinese and Filipino) comprise over half of the jurisdiction’s population. These contract laborers work in CNMI’s private and public sector in difficult-to-fill positions. Total population figures were projected in 2005 at 80,362 people. However, projected population figures based on the 2000 US Census are widely regarded as greatly inflated, secondary to the collapse of the CNMI’s garment factory industry and exodus from a strained economy and infrastructure. In fact, total population figures differ by some 20,000 from a recently released CNMI 2005 Household, Income and Expenditure Survey Report (CNMI-HEIS Report) Today, the CNMI is home to a multi-linguistic and multicultural population of about 66,000 people (approximately 31,000 U.S. Citizens and 35,000 Non-U.S. Citizens), according to the 2005 CNMI-HIES Report.
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