The US Pacific Islands Territories. The focus of this report is remote, economically challenged areas in CNMI and American Samoa, which were visited as part of this research. Although Guam is not a focus of this study, Guam was visited for purposes of obtaining an overview snapshot of Guam’s solid waste management. Guam demographics and other statistics are provided for informational purposes relative to the focus areas of the report. The islands are a great distance from the US mainland (e.g., American Samoa is closer to New Zealand, and Guam and the CNMI are closer to Asia than to the US) and have a much smaller population and size compared to most US states. Guam is a single island with a land mass of approximately 211 square miles; the CNMI and American Samoa consist of smaller land masses comprised of multiple islands. Table 1 provides basic demographics of the territories, including a list of the primary islands, their land area, and their populations compared to the US mainland. Of the islands visited, Guam is the largest island and most populated. The next were American Samoa and CNMI, Tutuila and Saipan, respectively, which are comparable in size and population. While the larger islands of Guam, Tutuila, and Saipan have relatively large population densities, many of the smaller islands are much less densely populated. Table 1. US Pacific Island Territory land area, population and Population density Territory Island Approximate Area (mi2) Populationa (2010) Population Density (People/mi2) Guam Guam 211b 159,358 760 American Samoa AS Total 76.14 55,519 726 Tutuila 53c 53,770 1,015 Aunu'u 0.59c 589d 998 Ofu 2.79c 176 63 Olosega 1.99c 177 89 Ta'ū 17.11c 790 46 Swains Island 0.58c 17 29 Rose Island 0.08c 0 0 CNMI CNMI Total 179.15 53,883 296 Saipan 48e 48,220 1,005 Rota 33f 2,527 77 Tinian 39.2g 3,136 80 Northern Islands 58.95h 0 0 United States mainland 3,531,905i 318,857,056i 87i aUS Census Bureau (2011a, b, c) bGingerich (2013) cUS Census Bureau (2003) dPopulation was estimated by using US Census 2000 percent of Sa’ole county designated as Aunu’u village and applying the same percentage to the US Census 2010 for Sa’ole county. eCarruth (2003) fCarruth (1999) gGingerich (2002) hBased on subtracting the other CNMI islands from the total land area estimated by (CIA nd.c). iUS Census Bureau (2015a), population data is from 2014 Table 2 compares the economies of the US Pacific island territories to that of the US mainland. The per capita income is much greater for the US mainland than for ...
