for the Census Bureau. The BNAs for Guam were to contain an optimum of 650 housing units, but could range from 500 to 1,200; BGs were to contain an optimum of 140 housing units and could range from 90 to 190. For the 1980 census, local officials designed the EDs, using an optimum of 140 and a range of approximately 100 to 160 housing units as the criteria. In both censuses, the Census Bureau worked with two Guam agencies—the Bureau of Planning and the Department of Commerce—to obtain information about both legal and statistical entities, and to conduct the decennial, economic, and agriculture censuses. In turn, these agencies worked with appropriate territorial agencies to ensure that the census geographic units would be meaningful entities for local data users.
The agriculture and economic censuses report data for Guam and each election district. However, the census of agriculture treats the districts as special geographic entities while the economic censuses treat them as the statistical equivalents of places.
The Northern Mariana Islands, which is part of Micronesia, comprises the former Mariana Islands District of the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands. It consists of three main islands—Saipan, Tinian, and Rota—and several small islands and atolls (see Figure 7-6). It is located just north of Guam; Saipan lies about 125 miles northeast of Guam, but southernmost Rota is less than 50 miles from Guam. The islands that constitute the Northern Marianas encompass some 430 miles from Rota in the south to Uracus Island in the north, but it is only 75 miles from Rota to Saipan; the lightly populated Northern Islands (an exodus, primarily due to volcanic activity, reduced the number to only 36 in 1990 and even fewer by 1992) stretch over some 300 miles of the Pacific. The Commonwealth’s capital is Saipan, but no locality on that island is recognized specifically as the capital; several (but not all) government offices are located in the CDP of Capital Hill, but the legislature meets in Susupe. Almost 90 percent of the population lives on Saipan (see Table 7-5). As in Guam, Chamorro is the most common native language spoken in the Northern Mariana Islands.
