Reports on the applicability of provisions of the U.S. Constitution to five insular areas: Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, American Samoa, & Guam. Also provides information on the status of nine smaller insular areas which are primarily uninhabited atolls or islands. Includes comments from the U.S. Coast Guard, the Department of the Interior, the Resident Commissioner of Puerto Rico, & the Resident Representative of the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands. Charts & tables.

The U.S. insular areas of American Samoa, the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, Guam, and the U.S. Virgin Islands, and three Freely Associated States (the Federated States of Micronesia, Palau, and the Republic of the Marshall Islands), face serious economic and fiscal challenges and rely on federal funding to deliver critical services. These insular areas, some of which are under U.S. sovereignty, and some of which are independent nations, rely on federal funding to support their local governments and deliver critical services. This book provides an overview of current issues and challenges facing U.S. insular areas today.

The larger insular areas have come under the sovereignty of the United States in various ways. Puerto Rico and Guam were ceded to the United States by treaty at the end of the Spanish-American War in 1898. The Virgin Islands were purchased from Denmark in 1917. Following the renunciation by Great Britain and Germany of their claims to what is now American Samoa and the cession by the Samoan chiefs to the United States of these islands, the Congress, in 1929, ratified the instruments ceding the islands to the United States. The United States was responsible for administering the Northern Mariana Islands after World War II under a United Nations trusteeship agreement. Ultimately, a covenant between the United States and the Northern Marianas established the islands as a commonwealth under the sovereignty of the United States. At present, general federal administrative responsibility for the CNMI, Guam, the Virgin Islands, and American Samoa is vested in the Department of the Interior.