Guam Highway 1
Guam Highway 1 (GH-1), also known as Marine Corps Drive, is one of the primary automobile routes in the United States territory of Guam. It runs in a southwest-to-northeast direction, from the main gate of Naval Base Guam in the western community of Santa Rita in a general northeasterly direction to the main gate of Andersen Air Force Base in the community of Yigo. It passes through Guam's capital, Hagåtña, as well as intersecting various other territorial highways. Along its route, the highway runs through tropical forest areas, urbanized commercial areas, and residential neighborhoods. The US Military built the road starting in 1941. Construction ceased with the Japanese invasion in December 1941 and resumed in 1944. The highway was formally dedicated to the US Marines by the territorial governor in 2004.
United States territorial acquisitions
In Guam, settlement by foreign ethnic groups was small at first. After World War II showed the strategic value of the island, construction of a huge military base began along with a large influx of people from other parts of the world. Guam today has a very mixed population of 164,000. The indigenous Chamorros make up 37% of the population. The rest of the population consists mostly of white Americans and Filipinos, with smaller groups of Chinese, Japanese, Koreans, Micronesians, Vietnamese and Indians. Guam today is almost totally Americanized. The situation is somewhat similar to that in Hawaii, but attempts to change Guam's status as an 'unincorporated' U.S. territory have yet to meet with success.