An Introduction to US Virgin Islands
Located in the Leeward Islands in the Lesser Antilles and officially known as the Virgin Islands of the United States, there are three main islands, St Croix, St John and St Thomas, plus smaller Water Islands and many minor islands. Formerly known as the Danish West Indies, they were sold to the US in 1916 for $25m. See full country profile.Latest Research News from Latin America
GOVERNMENT: Unincorporated organised territory of the US
AREA: 346 sq km
POPULATION: 109,750 (2010 Census)
MAJOR LANGUAGE: Official Language: English. Spanish, Creole also spoken.
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Trade and Industry in US Virgin Islands
Said to have begun drinking at the age of nine, and with personal tragedies enough in'his life to have driven most people truly mad - his father was shot and killed in 1968, his sister murdered by a serial killer in 1975, and his twin half-brothers died in a scuba diving accident in 1980 - Grammer played the loveable Freudian psychiatrist for 20 years (203 appearances on Cheers and 264 episodes of Frasier), tying the record for the longest-running character on prime-time American television. This despite an April 1993 survey of 1011 Cheers viewers by what is now the Pew Research Center, in which 15% of respondents chose Ted Danson's Sam Malone as the character they'd most like to see in a spin-off series, 12% Woody Boyd and 10% Norm Peterson - Frasier got 2%.
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Located in the Leeward Islands in the Lesser Antilles and officially known as the Virgin Islands of the United States, there are three main islands, St Croix, St John and St Thomas, plus smaller Water Islands and many minor islands. Formerly known as the Danish West Indies, they were sold to the US in 1916 for $25m.
A referendum on the islands' future was held in 1993, with a majority favouring the status quo, but as fewer than a third bothered to vote, the results were considered void anyway. Clearly no head of revolutionary steam...
GDP: $1.58bn (2003 est.); $14,370 per capita
Religions Protestant 59% (Baptist 42%, Episcopalian 17%), Roman Catholic 34%, other 7%
Currency: US dollar
Telephone Code: +1 340
The islands are volcanic in origin and are known for their white sand beaches, and attract some two million tourists a year, many on cruise ships - this is the main economic activity.
Electricity costs are four to five times higher than the US mainland duie to the need to import oil for most of the islands' energy.
Exports of $4.2bn in 2001 were mostly refined petroleum products. Imports of $4.6bn that year included crude oil, foodstuffs, consumer goods and building materials. The US and Puerto Rico are (or were) the key partners for both. Until February 2012, the Hovensa plant on St. Croix island was one of the world's largest petroleum refineries, and contributed about 20% of the territory's GDP, but is largely shut down now, resulting in a local economic crisis.
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