The British Virgin Islands (BVI) are sixteen inhabited and twenty uninhabited islands east of Puerto Rico in the Caribbean. Most of the population—estimated at 21,300 in 2003—live on the island of Tortola, whose capital is Road Town. The BVI enjoys a high level of gross domestic product by Caribbean standards with an estimated per capita average in 2002 of $16,000. The tourism industry, which in 2003 brought 400,000 visitors who spent $238 million, and financial services, with over 400,000 companies registered in 2001, are the main economic activities. The U.S. dollar is used as BVI currency. Since 1984, the BVI has become an international financial center and business registry, and legislation in the 1990s extended its place in global financial affairs.

The BVI has been a colony of the United Kingdom (UK) since the seventeenth century. The islands are a British Dependent Territory, an overseas territory of the UK that enjoys...