English

Proper noun

A group of islands in the English Channel . The islands of Guernsey, Alderney, Sark, Herm, Brecqhou, Lihou, Jethou, Burhou, and Jersey are all British crown dependencies, with continuously recorded history of over a thousand years of independent governance.

Constitutionally connected to the Monarch of England through personal inheritance as a lineal descendant of William, Duke of Normandy, who defeated King Harold of England at the battle of Hastings in 1066.

Mutually-convenient administrative relationships exist between the UK Government and the various Channel Islands; no other formal relationships pertain. Currency (Guernsey pound, Jersey pound) informally tied at 1:1 exchange rate with United Kingdom pound sterling. European VAT (Value Added Tax) is not charged in the Channel Islands.

The Islands are located in the Bay of St. Malo, an area known for dramatic tidal currents (spring tide ranges exceed 30 vertical feet), often impenetrable Channel fogs, and winter weather patterns arriving from the open Atlantic, with large swells and hurricane-force winds. Coastlines are granitic and roughly eroded. These conditions explain a long-standing ban on bare-boat chartering in the Islands. Summers are generally temperate, and the islands receive more hours of sunshine annually than anywhere else in the British Isles.

Abandoned without contest by the UK Government to the advancing German forces as they swept unopposed through France, those Channel Islanders who were not evacuated to the UK mainland endured the longest enemy occupation by the Nazis, and lived under the highest ratio of enemy troops to civilians in any occupied country in Western Europe. The islands are dotted with remnant fortifications and constructions from the Second World War back through Iron Age hill forts, Roman artefacts, all the way to Neolithic monuments predating the better-known Stonehenge.

Fiercely independent, and perhaps the truest original Libertarians in doughty spirit, Channel Islanders have been happy throughout their history to exploit the trading opportunities created by perennial disputes and outright warfare existing between the United Kingdom and its Continental neighbours, and the invariable tendency of European governments in general to suppress the enterprise of their populations with draconian levels of taxation, and quietly making themselves a jolly good living without much fuss.

Translations

• French: les îles Anglo-Normandes f pl, les îles de la Manche f pl
• German: die Kanalinseln f pl
• Italian: le Isole Normanne f pl, le Isole del Canale f pl, le Isole del Canale della Manica f