The Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI) is a chain of 14 islands stretching north from Guam in the western Pacific, approximately 120 miles north of Guam at their southern end and extending nearly 400 miles north to the remote volcanic island of Farallon de Pajaros. Three islands, Saipan, Tinian, and Rota, hold virtually the entire population of approximately 47,000 people. The remaining islands are largely uninhabited, several having been evacuated following volcanic eruptions or left empty after the forced relocations of their populations during the 20th century.

The CNMI's relationship with the United States is unusual even by the standards of U.S. territorial arrangements. It is the only jurisdiction to call itself a "Commonwealth in political union" with the United States, a status negotiated directly with the local population in a 1975 vote and formalized in a Covenant that took full effect in 1986. Unlike Guam, which was seized from Spain in 1898 without consulting its residents, the CNMI's current political status resulted from a democratic choice made by the Marianas people during the decolonization process of the 1970s.

The islands carry a history that is simultaneously ancient and modern, deeply local and globally consequential. The latte stones of the ancient Chamorros, the sugar economy of Japanese colonialism, the most devastating Pacific island battles of World War II, the atomic bomb pits on Tinian, the sweatshops of the garment era, and the luxury resort hotels of the Japanese tourism boom all exist within 184 square miles and within living memory. Nowhere in American territory is the layering of history quite so compressed.