elected by the residents of the municipality; prior to September 6, 1989, this title was commissioner. A mayor has the legal authority to carry out certain municipal functions, resolves community concerns and problems, and serves as a liaison with both the Territorial Government and the legislature. Since the mayor cannot pass laws or raise taxes, the municipalities do not actually have a local, self-governing capability. The mayor’s office usually is located in the portion of a municipality known locally as the village, and therefore some mayors still may be known as village commissioners. The municipalities also are used for land recordation. At the request of the Guam government, the Census Bureau has recognized the current election districts as MCDs since the 1960 census; prior to that time, the decennial census recognized the following:
- 1920—towns, barrios, one city (Agana, the capital), one district, and one municipality
- 1930—eight municipalities and a naval reservation; the municipalities primarily consisted of towns, barrios, and Agana city
- 1940—15 municipalities, consisting of towns and barrios; 1 was coextensive with Agana city, which was further divided into 10 districts
- 1950—15 municipalities, which included 19 villages and 1 city
Until the 1980 census, the Census Bureau referred to the places in Guam as cities, towns, and villages even though they were not incorporated places in the stateside sense of that term. For the 1980 census, 32 unincorporated settlements were identified more accurately as census designated places (CDPs). To qualify as a CDP, an area delineated by local officials as a potential CDP had to contain at least 300 people. The same 32 CDPs appeared in the 1990 census; 6 of the CDPs represented military housing areas. To ensure that Agana would appear in the census tabulations, a special criterion permitted it to qualify as a CDP regardless of its population count; as it turned out, the special rule was not needed because instead of an anticipated decline, Agana grew from a population of 896 in 1980 to 1,139 in 1990.
Guam was block-numbered for the first time in the 1990 census. To provide data for locally useful areas, local officials delineated a BNA and BG plan
Puerto Rico and the Outlying Areas7-21
