The U.S. Pacific Island territories consist of Guam, American Samoa, the Northern Mariana Islands, CNMI, and several uninhabited islands collectively known as the United States Minor Outlying Islands. Guam became part of the United States from Spain in 1898, following the Spanish, American War, and remains a strategically vital unincorporated territory whose residents are U.S. citizens but lack voting representation in Congress. American Samoa became part of the United States from local Samoan chiefs between 1900, 1904, through deeds of cession amid imperial competition with Germany, uniquely, people born there are U.S. nationals, not citizens, a status tied to preserving traditional land tenure and chiefly systems. The Northern Mariana Islands followed a different path, after passing from Spain, to Germany, to Japan, they became a UN trust after WWII and voluntarily entered political union with the United States in 1978, granting U.S. citizenship under a negotiated covenant. The Minor Outlying Islands, such as Wake and Midway, became part of the United States from unclaimed or abandoned territory mainly in the mid, to late 19th century, under the Guano Islands Act or later military annexation and serve strategic and logistical purposes rather than civilian governance.