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Situated along the western shore of the island of Guam, the municipality of Tamuning includes the census-designated villages of Apotgan, Harmon, Oka, Tumon, and the village of Tamuning. The original village was known as Apurgan or Apotgan, and was a major population center on the island of Guam.

However, the northern part of Guam was emptied of its population during the Spanish-Chamorro Wars of the late 1600s. For the next couple of centuries, the region was used for hunting, fishing, and ranching. Its repopulation began in 1849 when Governor Pablo Perez established the village of Tamuning as a place to relocate a group of settlers from the Caroline Islands whose homes had been destroyed by a typhoon.

When the island came under the control of the United States Navy in the early 1900s. the new governor relocated the Carolinian population to Saipan, on the Northern Mariana Islands. Under American governance, the Chamorro people began to move back into the area, establishing small villages. During the World War II Japanese occupation, villagers were at first allowed to remain in their homes, although Tumon Bay was fortified by the Japanese military and the Chamorro people were restricted from the coastal areas. However, before American forces retook the island in 1944, most of the people in this area had been forced into Japanese concentration camps.

When they returned to the area after the war, they found that their former homes and farmlands were part of the new Harmon Air Force Base and that much of the land in Tumon Bay had been designated an Army Air Corps recreation area, off-limits to the Chamorros. A conflict erupted in 1949 when the United States threatened to condemn the entire area. When a Chamorro by the name of Segundo Unpingco stood in front of the bulldozers with a shotgun, the condemnation was halted. After negotiations, portions of the area were returned to the local government of Guam. Nevertheless, by the 1980s, rapid development in the area surrounding the Air Force Base had changed life in the area so much that many of these residents relocated to other parts of the island, or to the United States mainland. Those who remained were no longer living in a rural area, as populations swelled with people from outside of the island, and Tamuning became the most ethnically diverse part of the island, as the Chamorros were joined with Filipinos, Hawaiians, and Asians.

Points of historical interest in Tamuning include San Vitores Monument, which commemorates the place where Blessed Diego Luis de San Vitores was killed by the Chamorro chief Matapang in 1672. San Vitores is credited with bringing Roman Catholicism to Guam, and his death marked the beginning of the Spanish-Chamorro Wars. Other places of interest include Ypao Beach Park, the largest and oldest beach park on the island, as well as the Cushing Zoo, and Matapang Beach Park. Two Lover's Point is a picturesque cliff at the northern part of Tumon Bay. It was named after a legend that speaks of two lovers jumping to their deaths here, with their hair tied together, during the early Spanish period. Tamuning also includes the tourist district of Tumon and Guam Premier Outlets, one of the major shopping centers in Guam.

 

 

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