Key facts about Guam

> Geographic basics: The strip of land in the western Pacific Ocean is roughly the size of Chicago, and just 6km) wide at its narrowest point. It is about 3,500km southeast of North Korea, much closer than it is to any of the US.

Hawaii is about 6,500 kilometres to the west. Its proximity to China, Japan, the Philippines and the Korean Peninsula has long made the island an essential possession of the US military. > US relationship: Guam was claimed by Spain in 1565 and became a US territory in 1898 during the SpanishAmerican War.

Japan seized it for about two-and-a-half years during World War II. In 1950, an act of Congress made it an unincorporated organised territory of the US.

It has limited self-government, with a popularly elected governor, small legislature, and non-voting delegate in the US House of Representatives. > Military history: The US keeps a Naval base and Coast Guard station in the south, and an Air Force base in the north that saw heavy use during the Vietnam War.

While already taking up 30 per cent of the island, the American military has been seeking to increase its presence by relocating to Guam thousands of Marines who are currently based in Okinawa, Japan. > People and government: The island was first populated about 4,000 years ago by the ancestors of the Chamorros, still the island’s largest ethnic group. Now, about 160,000 people live on Guam.

Its capital city is Hagatna and its largest city is Dededo. Its chief languages are English and Chamorro. It has seen various popular movements pushing for greater self-government or even US statehood, most notably a significant but failed effort in the 1980s to make it a commonwealth on par with Puerto Rico. —