page_title: Virgin Gorda
section_title: Geography
hierarchical_section_title: Virgin Gorda / Geography
caption_attribution_description: View of the beach at The Baths
context_page_description: Virgin Gorda is the third-largest and second-most populous of the British Virgin Islands.
context_section_description: Located at about 18 degrees, 48 minutes North, and 64 degrees, 30 minutes West, it covers an area of about 8 square miles (21 km²).
  The main commercial and residential area is Spanish Town on the southwestern part of the island.
  An unusual geologic formation known as "the Baths" located on the southern end of the island makes Virgin Gorda one of the BVI's major tourist destinations. At the Baths, in spite of evidence of the island's largely volcanic origins, huge granite boulders lie in piles on the beach, forming scenic grottoes that are open to the sea. Granite is an intrusive igneous rock, thus not volcanic.  It did form from magma, however, at great depth.  Granite becomes exposed at surface only after geologic ages of erosion removes the overburden.  Further erosion broke the granite into large boulders and rounded their surfaces.  North of the Baths is the Virgin Gorda Yacht Harbor, formerly owned by Little Dix Bay. The most notable ruin on Virgin Gorda is the old Copper Mine.
  One of the great harbors of the world, North Sound, and historically Gorda Sound, lies at the northeast end of the island. It is bordered by four islands and connecting reef systems that keep the sound calm, creating one of the world's great watersports meccas, with over 3,000 acres (1,200 ha) of protected waters.  At the eastern end of the sound is the premier anchorage, in the lee of Biras Hill (elevation 435 ft (133 m)). The village, resort, and marina at this point (Jon'O'Point) is called the Bitter End Yacht Club, and runs for about a mile of coastline.
caption: The Baths, 2013
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