Fast Facts
- Named for: Geirr or jarl, Spear or Earl’s island (-ey)
- Capital (and only town): St. Helier
- Long/Lat: 49.1 N/2.6 W (just inside Greenwich Mean), 8000 mi 10 hrs East of Castro Valley
- Population: 103,000, 1.5 CVs
- Size: 46 sq mi, 3 CVs (just my size)
- Avg temp in April: 57 F/16 F
- Median household income: $55,000 (island=expensive)
- Ethnicity: 44% Jersey/31% British/9% Portuguese/3% Polish
- Main industries: Offshore finance, tourism (season), some cows
Jersey is not a country–boot it out of the list! Not so fast, though. My other options of Jamaica, Japan, and Jordan are all too big and too well known. So let’s take Jersey on, fully acknowledging that this thing is not like the others. It will have to do now and later, for X, anyway.
Jersey is a self-governing island in the English Channel, owned by the British Crown but not part of the UK. Its citizens are British citizens, but not UK citizens. The nearby island of Guernsey (made famous in that book Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society which is a romance involving Nazis) carries the same status. Been to Guernsey–beautiful place! Haven’t been to Jersey. I mean, it’s cheating, but Jersey might look like Guernsey…
Continue reading “J is for Jersey”