Place · island

United States Virgin Islands

Also known as American Virgin Islands, Danish West Indies

The United States Virgin Islands are a group of Caribbean islands east of Puerto Rico, the main ones being Saint Thomas, Saint John and Saint Croix. As the Danish West Indies they were a Danish colony of sugar plantations worked by enslaved Africans until emancipation in 1848. The United States bought them from Denmark in 1917, and they remain an unincorporated American territory.

United States Virgin Islands
Image: Percival Wilson Sparks. sparksfamilyassn.org. Retrieved on 2026-05-26. · Public domain · Wikimedia Commons

Mentioned in 1 profile

Kingdom of DenmarkSocioeconomy, Decline

Mentioned in 1 state history

British Virgin Islands

See also

Cite this entry
APA
The Epoch Institute. (2026). United States Virgin Islands. In The Epoch Institute Encyclopedia. https://the-epoch-institute.org/encyclopedia/united-states-virgin-islands
MLA
“United States Virgin Islands.” The Epoch Institute Encyclopedia, The Epoch Institute, 2026, https://the-epoch-institute.org/encyclopedia/united-states-virgin-islands. Accessed .
Chicago
The Epoch Institute. “United States Virgin Islands.” The Epoch Institute Encyclopedia. 2026. https://the-epoch-institute.org/encyclopedia/united-states-virgin-islands.
Harvard
The Epoch Institute (2026) ‘United States Virgin Islands’, The Epoch Institute Encyclopedia. Available at: https://the-epoch-institute.org/encyclopedia/united-states-virgin-islands (Accessed: ).

Last reviewed October 2026Random entry ↻