What are the U.S. Virgin Islands?

The U.S. Virgin Islands are a United States territory in the Caribbean Sea, an archipelago of three larger islands (St. Thomas, St. Croix, and St. John) plus more than 50 smaller cays and islets, totaling about 134 square miles, located about 40 miles east of Puerto Rico. The capital is Charlotte Amalie on St. Thomas. The total population is about 87,000, making the U.S. Virgin Islands the second most populous U.S. Caribbean territory after Puerto Rico.

The United States purchased the Virgin Islands from Denmark on March 31, 1917 for 25 million dollars in gold (about 600 million dollars in 2024 dollars), the largest amount ever paid for a small territory by area. The Danish government had owned the islands as the Danish West Indies since 1672 (St. Thomas) and 1733 (St. John), and had purchased St. Croix from France in 1733. Denmark used the islands as sugar producing colonies based on plantation slavery until emancipation in 1848. The U.S. acquired the islands during World War I primarily for strategic reasons, fearing that Germany might seize Denmark and use the islands as submarine bases threatening Caribbean shipping and the Panama Canal opened in 1914.

Congress granted U.S. citizenship to the Virgin Islanders by the Revised Organic Act of 1936 (with full citizenship by the act of 1954), and the territory now has an elected Governor, a unicameral 15-member Legislature, and a non-voting delegate to the U.S. House of Representatives. Residents cannot vote in presidential elections from the islands. The U.S. Virgin Islands are an unincorporated organized U.S. territory, similar in status to Guam and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands. The Virgin Islands are part of the larger Virgin Islands archipelago shared with the British Virgin Islands to the east.

The economy depends heavily on tourism (especially cruise ships, with Charlotte Amalie one of the busiest cruise ports in the Caribbean), rum distilling (Cruzan and Captain Morgan rums are produced on St. Croix), and federal government employment. The HOVENSA oil refinery on St. Croix was once one of the largest in the world but closed in 2012. The islands suffered catastrophic damage from Hurricanes Irma and Maria in September 2017, including widespread power and infrastructure failures and significant population loss.

St. John is dominated by Virgin Islands National Park, which covers about two-thirds of the island and protects coral reefs, beaches, and historic sugar plantation ruins. The islands' culture combines African, Danish, English, French, Spanish, and indigenous Taino influences. English is the official language, but English Creole, Spanish, and French Creole are also widely spoken.