Saipan Island（塞班岛）

By Freelance Chinese Translator Li – English to Chinese translation services - based in China.
Saipan island, one of the Mariana Islands, part of the Northern Mariana
Islands, a commonwealth of the United States, in the western Pacific Ocean.
Saipan served as headquarters of the U.S.-administered United Nations Trust
Territory of the Pacific Islands from 1962 to 1986. The island is hilly（多小山的）,
rising to an elevation of 1,545 feet (471 metres) at Mount Takpochao (or
Tagpochau); it is 14 miles (23 km) long and 5 miles (8 km) across at its widest
point. Broad inlets（入口） (Laolao [Magicienne] Bay and Tanapag Harbor) are on
both its sides. The smaller island of Tinian lies immediately southwest across
the Saipan Channel.

Saipan was under Spanish sovereignty（统治） from 1565 to 1899 and came
under German rule from 1899 to 1914. It was made a Japanese mandate（授权统治） in
1920. During World War II, the successful U.S.-led Allied invasion and capture
of the island (June–July 1944) was one of the
fiercest land battles in the Pacific theatre. Some 3,500 U.S. troops（军队） died
in the fighting, and nearly all of the 30,000 Japanese defenders were killed;
thousands of Japanese civilians also died, many jumping to their deaths off
Banzai Cliff, at the northern end of the island, rather than face capture.
Saipan became an important U.S. military（军事） air base during the last year of
the war, and between 1953 and 1962 it was under U.S. naval jurisdiction(司法权).

The seat of government of the commonwealth(共和国) of the Northern Mariana
Islands is on Saipan; the executive and legislative branches are headquartered
at Capital Hill, and the judiciary（法官） meets at Susupe. Subsistence crops（生长的农作物）
include taro, cassava, yams, breadfruit, and bananas. Tourism and its related
industries are Saipan’s economic mainstay（支柱）. Saipan
has a commercial dock（商业码头） and an international airport. Area 46.5 square
miles (120 square km). Pop. (2000) 62,392.