America's tropical secret — WWII cliffs, coral reefs, and duty-free diving
Saipan is the largest island of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI) — a US Commonwealth in Micronesia whose blue-flagged Micro Beach, natural swimming hole of Grotto, and the haunting WWII sites of Suicide Cliff and Banzai Cliff make it one of the Pacific's most complete destinations. The island is particularly popular with Japanese visitors — it was here that the final Pacific War battles on US soil were fought in 1944.
Saipan was originally settled by Chamorro people around 1500 BC, later dominated by the Carolinian people who migrated from Yap and other FSM islands. Spain colonised it in 1668, Germany bought it in 1899, and Japan took it in 1914 and developed it as the administrative centre of Micronesia. The Battle of Saipan in June–July 1944 was one of the bloodiest of the Pacific War; Japanese civilian mass suicides at Suicide and Banzai Cliffs — where civilians jumped rather than surrender — remain searing symbols of wartime propaganda's cost.