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 However, the Census Bureau treated the CNMI separately from the TTPI in the 1980 census tabulations because the legal structure for its commonwealth relationship with the United States was already in place. Citizens of the CNMI elect a governor and lieutenant governor, a 15-member House of Representatives, and a 9-member Senate. The CNMI does not have representation in the U.S. Congress.

Population censuses were conducted under the authority of the government of Japan (1925 through 1940), the Department of the Navy (1950), the Department of the Interior (1955), and the High Commissioner of the TTPI (1958 and 1973). The 1970 census was the first decennial census that included the CNMI; at the same time, the Census Bureau took an agriculture census of the CNMI, the results of which were published with the 1969 Census of Agriculture. In 1997, the CNMI will be included with the regular five-year agriculture census cycle, rather than having that census conducted in conjunction with the decennial census. The economic censuses included the CNMI for the first time in 1982.

For the 1990 census, the Census Bureau dropped the Mariana Islands District of the TTPI from its records; previously it had served as the county-equivalent first-order subdivision of the CNMI. Accordingly, each lower-level entity was elevated one step in the hierarchy; that is, municipalities were no longer treated as MCDs but as the statistical equivalents of counties, and municipal districts were recognized as MCDs rather than sub-MCDs (see ). The municipalities of Rota, Saipan, and Tinian each coincided with one of the major islands, except that Tinian also included uninhabited Aguijan (or Aguiguan) Island. The municipalities are governmental units, each with its own elected mayor and municipal council, except that Saipan’s municipal council also serves the Northern Islands Municipality and its mayor. The mayors and the chairpersons of the municipal councils also serve as part of an advisory council that works with the Governor on government operations and local matters. Puerto Rico and the Outlying Areas7-25