page_title: Geography of the British Virgin Islands
hierarchical_section_title: Geography of the British Virgin Islands
caption_attribution_description: English: This true-colour image of Tortola and its smaller neighbours, Guana Island, Grand Camanoe, and Beef Island. The islands follow a roughly south-west-north-east trajectory. Gray-beige urbanized areas cling to the coast while Tortola’s interior remains mostly green, an arrangement driven by the islands’s topography. The biggest settlement fringes Road Bay. A straight line crossing Beef Island gives away the location of a small airport. Tortola’s carpet of green suggests a lush rainforest, but the island actually supports a patch of drought-resistant forest, in addition to plants accustomed to more water. Tortola’s climate and land surface are well suited to raising livestock, but tourism and financial services are the primary industries.
context_page_description: The British Virgin Islands are located in the Caribbean, between the Caribbean Sea and the North Atlantic Ocean, east of Puerto Rico. Its geographic coordinates are 18°30′N 64°30′W. Map references include Central America and the Caribbean. The area totals 151 km² and comprises 16 inhabited and more than 20 uninhabited islands; includes the islands of Tortola, Anegada, Virgin Gorda and Jost van Dyke. Maritime claims include 3 nmi of territorial sea and exclusive a 200 nmi fishing zone. In terms of land use, it is 20% arable land, 6.67% permanent crops and 73.33% other as of a 2005 figure.
  It has strong ties to nearby U.S. Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico.
context_section_description: The British Virgin Islands are located in the Caribbean, between the Caribbean Sea and the North Atlantic Ocean, east of Puerto Rico. Its geographic coordinates are 18°30′N 64°30′W. Map references include Central America and the Caribbean. The area totals 151 km² (about 0.9 times the size of Washington, DC) and comprises 16 inhabited and more than 20 uninhabited islands; includes the islands of Tortola, Anegada, Virgin Gorda and Jost van Dyke. Maritime claims include 3 nmi (5.6 km; 3.5 mi) of territorial sea and exclusive a 200 nmi (370.4 km; 230.2 mi) fishing zone. In terms of land use, it is 20% arable land, 6.67% permanent crops and 73.33% other as of a 2005 figure.
  It has strong ties to nearby U.S. Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico.
caption: British Virgin Islands - NASA ALI Earth Observing-1 (Visible Color) Satellite Image
exif: {"Image ImageWidth": "5611", "Image ImageLength": "11221", "Image BitsPerSample": "[16, 16, 16]", "Image Compression": "Uncompressed", "Image PhotometricInterpretation": "2", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image SamplesPerPixel": "3", "Image XResolution": "1", "Image YResolution": "1", "Image PlanarConfiguration": "2", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop CS3 Macintosh", "Image DateTime": "2009:11:25 14:28:25", "Image ExifOffset": "256", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "394", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "4112", "EXIF ColorSpace": "Uncalibrated", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "2700", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "1800"}