British Virgin Islands

British Virgin Islands
Overseas Territory of the ‌United Kingdom


Motto Vigilate
Anthem God Save the Queen


Region	Virgin Islands

Capital	Road Town

Status	Overseas Territory
Head of State
- From 1952	Queen Elizabeth II
Governor
- From 2010	William Boyd McCleary
Premier
- From 2007	Ralph T. O'Neal

Legislature	Parliament

History
- January 1, 1960	Established
- April 18, 1967	Autonomous territory

Area	153 km²

Population
- 2005	27,000
Density	176.4/km²

GDP	2005 (PPP)
- Total	US$ 1.1 billion
- Per capita	US$ 43,366

Currency	US dollar

Leeward Islands colony
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The British Virgin Islands is a overseas territory of the the United Kingdom, located in the Caribbean.

Background

First inhabited by Arawak and later by Carib Indians, the Virgin Islands were settled by the Dutch in 1648 and then annexed by the English in 1672. The islands were part of the British colony of the Leeward Islands from 1872-1960; they were granted autonomy in 1967. The economy is closely tied to the larger and more populous US Virgin Islands to the west; the US dollar is the legal currency.^[1]

Economy

The economy, one of the most stable and prosperous in the Caribbean, is highly dependent on tourism generating an estimated 45% of the national income. More than 934,000 tourists, mainly from the US, visited the islands in 2008. In the mid-1980s, the government began offering offshore registration to companies wishing to incorporate in the islands, and incorporation fees now generate substantial revenues. Roughly 400,000 companies were on the offshore registry by yearend 2000. The adoption of a comprehensive insurance law in late 1994, which provides a blanket of confidentiality with regulated statutory gateways for investigation of criminal offenses, made the British Virgin Islands even more attractive to international business. Livestock raising is the most important agricultural activity; poor soils limit the islands' ability to meet domestic food requirements. Because of traditionally close links with the US Virgin Islands, the British Virgin Islands has used the US dollar as its currency since 1959.^[2]