An Overview of Guernsey

St Peters Port, Guernsey

The Bailiwick of Guernsey is a collection of islands off the coast of France that are a British Crown Possession.  The Parliament in Westminster is responsible for their security, international relations and foreign affairs but they are self-governing for all internal matters including taxation.

The Bailiwick is divided into three sub-jurisdictions.  By far the largest is Guernsey which consists of the island of Guernsey (which is also by far the largest of these islands) plus the smaller islands of Herm, Jethon and Lihou.

Sark is a further sub-jurisdiction which covers the island of the same name (situated just to the east of the island of Guernsey) plus the island of Brecqhon.

The third sub-jurisdiction is Alderney which is a single island to the north of the others.

The island of Guernsey consist of 25 square miles out of a total of 30 square miles for the entire Bailiwick upon which around 64,000 live out of the total population of the Bailiwick of 66,000. The population of Sark and Alderney is 600 and 1900 respectively.

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