Virgin Islands

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Virgin Islands

The Virgin Islands are an archipelago

Archipelago

An archipelago is a chain or cluster of islands that are formed tectonically. The word archipelago literally means "chief sea", from Italian language arcipelago , derived ultimately from Greek language arkhon and pelagos ....
, part of the Leeward Islands

Leeward Islands

The Leeward Islands are the northern islands of the Lesser Antilles chain of islands, part of the West Indies. They are situated where the Caribbean Sea meets the western Atlantic Ocean....
in the Caribbean Sea

Caribbean Sea

The Caribbean Sea is a sea of the Atlantic Ocean situated in the mid-latitudes of the Western Hemisphere, bounded to the south and west by the Americas, with the North Atlantic Ocean proper to the northeast and the Gulf of Mexico to the northwest....
.

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The Virgin Islands are an archipelago

Archipelago

Leeward Islands

Caribbean Sea

Lesser Antilles

The Lesser Antilles, also known as the Caribbees, are part of the Antilles, which together with the Bahamas, the Turks and Caicos Islands, and Greater Antilles form the West Indies....
, where the Caribbean Sea meets the western Atlantic Ocean

Atlantic Ocean

The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's oceanic divisions; with a total area of about 106.4 million square kilometres . It covers approximately one-fifth of the Earth's surface....
.

The Virgin Islands are divided into two political entities; on the east, Anegada

Anegada

Anegada is the northernmost of the British Virgin Islands, a group of islands which form part of the archipelago of the Virgin Islands. It lies approximately north of Virgin Gorda....
, Jost Van Dyke

Jost Van Dyke

At roughly 8 square kilometers, Jost Van Dyke is the smallest of the four main islands of the British Virgin Islands, the northern portion of the archipelago of the Virgin Islands, located in the Atlantic Ocean and Caribbean Sea....
, Tortola

Tortola

Tortola is the largest and most populated of the British Virgin Islands, a group of islands which form part of the archipelago of the Virgin Islands....
, Virgin Gorda

Virgin Gorda

Virgin Gorda is the third-largest and second most populous of the British Virgin Islands . Located at approximately 18 degrees, 48 minutes North, and 64 degrees, 30 minutes West, it covers an area of about 8 square miles ....
, and over fifty other smaller islands are administered as an overseas territory of the United Kingdom

British Virgin Islands

The British Virgin Islands is a British overseas territory, located in the Caribbean to the east of Puerto Rico. The islands make up part of the Virgin Islands, the remaining islands constituting the United States Virgin Islands....
; and in the west, St. Croix, St. John

Saint John, U.S. Virgin Islands

Saint John is an island in the Caribbean Sea and a constituent Districts and sub-districts of the United States Virgin Islands of the United States Virgin Islands , an unincorporated territory of the United States....
, St. Thomas, and Water Island

Water Island

Water Island may refer to:*Water Island, New York*Water Island, U.S. Virgin Islands...
are governed as an unincorporated territory of the United States

United States Virgin Islands

The United States Virgin Islands is a group of islands in the Caribbean that are an insular area of the United States. The islands are geographically part of the Virgin Islands and are located in the Leeward Islands of the Lesser Antilles....
.

Christopher Columbus

Christopher Columbus

Christopher Columbus was a Republic of Genoa navigator, colonialist and explorer whose voyages across the Atlantic Ocean?funded by Queen Isabella of Spain?led to general European awareness of the America in the Western Hemisphere....
named the islands Santa Ursula y las Once Mil Vírgenes, shortened to Las Vírgenes, after Saint Ursula

Saint Ursula

Saint Ursula is a Great Britain Christian saint. Her feast day in the Roman Catholic Church is October 21. Because of the lack of sure information about the anonymous group of holy virgins who on some uncertain date were killed at Cologne, their commemoration was omitted from the Roman Catholic calendar of saints for universal liturgical ce...
and her 11,000 virgins. They were inhabited by Arawak

Arawak

The term Arawak , was used to designate some of the peoples encountered by the Spain in the West Indies in 1492 and thereafter. These include the Ta?no, who occupied the Greater Antilles and the Bahamas and Bimini Florida, the Nepoya and Suppoyo of Trinidad and the Igneri, who were supposed to have preceded the Caribs in the Lesser Anti...
, Carib

Carib

Carib, Island Carib or Kalinago people, after whom the Caribbean Sea was named, live in the Lesser Antilles islands. They are an Amerindian people whose origins lie in the southern West Indies and the northern coast of South America....
and Cermic Indians, all of whom died out during the colonial period from disease, harsh labor conditions, and murder.

Later, the islands were re-populated by European plantation owners, and enslaved Africans who worked on sugar plantations, and at least one tobacco plantation

Plantation

A plantation is usually a large farm or Estate , especially in a tropical or semitropical country, like Brazil or Nicaragua on which cotton, tobacco, lice coffee, sugar cane and the like are cultivated, usually by resident laborers....
. The sugar plantations are gone, but the descendants of the enslaved Africans remain the bulk of the population, sharing a common Afro-Caribbean heritage with the rest of the English-speaking Caribbean.

Motor vehicles are driven on the left-hand side of the road on both the British and the U.S. Virgin Islands, although the steering wheels on most cars is located on the left side (as is the norm for drive-on-the-right localities). Also, the United States dollar

United States dollar

The United States dollar is the unit of currency of the United States and was defined by the Coinage Act of 1792 to be between 371 and 416 grains of silver ....
is the official currency on both the British and U.S. Virgin Islands.

West of the Virgin Islands lie the islands of Vieques and Culebra

Culebra

Culebra has several meanings:* Culebra, Puerto Rico, part of Puerto Rico.* Sedge Island, part of the Falkland Islands archipelago.* Culebra Peak, the southernmost fourteener in Colorado, USA....
, that since a 1990s tourist campaign have re-christened themselves the Spanish Virgin Islands

Spanish Virgin Islands

The Spanish Virgin Islands are a group of islands just east of the main island of Puerto Rico. They are part of the Puerto Rico. Although United States territory, they are politically and culturally distinct from the United States Virgin Islands which lies to the east of the Spanish Virgin Islands....
, though they are seldom identified as such on maps and atlases. The "Spanish Virgin Islands", or Passage Islands, are just east of Puerto Rico, and governed as part of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico. Natives speak Spanish, and the culture is similar to Puerto Rico. Vieques and Culebra belonged to Spain prior to the Spanish-American War

Spanish-American War

The Spanish?American War was an armed military conflict between Spain and the United States that took place between April and August 1898, over the issues of the liberation of Cuba....
in 1898. Though the islands are not labeled part of the Virgin Islands archipelago, some argue that Vieques and Culebra are geographically part of the Virgin Islands chain, and note that Vieques and Culebra are closer to St. Thomas, than St. Thomas is to St. Croix.

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in the

Virgin Islands

See also

External links