Saint Croix (/krɔɪ/ KROY; Spanish: Santa Cruz; Dutch: Sint-Kruis; French: Sainte-Croix; Danish and Norwegian: Sankt Croix; Taino: Ay Ay) is an island in the Caribbean Sea, and a county and constituent district of the United States Virgin Islands (USVI), an unincorporated territory of the United States.

Columbus landed on Santa Cruz, as he called it, on 14 November 1493, and was immediately attacked by the Kalinago, who lived at Salt River on the north shore.

This is the first recorded fight between the Spanish and a New World native population, and Columbus gave the battle site the name Cabo de la Flecha (Cape of the Arrow).

[9] In 1725, St. Thomas Governor Frederik Moth encouraged the Danish West Indies Company's directors to consider purchasing Santa Cruz (St. Croix).

[11] Future American revolutionary leader Alexander Hamilton and his brother lived in Christiansted with their mother, Rachel Faucette, on St. Croix after she returned to the island in 1765.

In 1916, Denmark sold St. Croix, St. Thomas, and St. John to the U.S., formalizing the transfer in the Treaty of the Danish West Indies, in exchange for $25 million in gold.

The 1972 Fountain Valley massacre, a mass shooting during a robbery at a golf club, led to a devastating reduction in tourism that lasted many years.

From the north-side hills, a fairly even plain slopes down to the south coast; this was cultivated as the island's prime sugar land.

The hills of the western part of the island receive a good deal more rain than the east end; annual rainfall is on the whole extremely variable, averaging around 40 inches (1,000 mm).

Most ancestral native Crucians today are employed by the Government of the Virgin Islands, while others are involved in the tourism industry and the legal and medical professions.

[18] The United States Navy purchase of two-thirds of the nearby Puerto Rican island of Vieques during World War II resulted in the displacement of thousands of Viequenses, many of whom relocated to St. Croix because of its similar size and geography.

The demand for imported labor in St. Croix was exacerbated by the fact that many ancestral native Crucians, having acquired U.S. citizenship decades earlier, migrated to the mainland U.S. to pursue educational and career opportunities.

Most down-islanders came from St. Kitts and Nevis, Antigua, St. Lucia, and Dominica, but people from every Anglophone Caribbean nation can be found on St. Croix.

Many ancestral native Crucians also share family ties with Barbados, as Bajans were heavily recruited to St. Croix to work on sugar plantations in the late 19th century.

Arab Palestinians have been an influential part of the local economy since the 1960s, when they first started to migrate to St. Croix to set up shops, supermarkets, and gas stations.

In the 21st century, waves of migration to St. Croix have included people from the Dominican Republic, Haiti, Jamaica, the Philippines, and various South American nations.

The United States Congress rejected the proposed constitution in 2010 for violating the principle of equal rights for all citizens of the territory, "native" or not, and sent it back to the convention for further consideration.

Protestant denominations are the most prevalent, but there is also a significant Roman Catholic presence due to St. Croix's large Hispanic population, as well as Irish influence during the Danish colonial period.

Gas prices on St. Croix were slightly higher than average than in the continental U.S. On January 18, 2012, HOVENSA announced that its refinery would be permanently shut down.

This has proven difficult for new residents and visitors from right-hand traffic locales such as the mainland U.S., the French and Dutch West Indies, the Dominican Republic, and Puerto Rico.

The QE IV Ferry makes one trip per day departing from Gallows Bay, Christiansted, to Charlotte Amalie, St. Thomas.

The Henry E. Rohlsen International Airport serves St. Croix with regular flights from the U.S. mainland, Puerto Rico, and the Eastern Caribbean.

Therefore, travelers to and from the contiguous U.S. and Puerto Rico must clear U.S. customs but do not need to present a passport, only proof of U.S. citizenship or nationality.

The island's largest festival, Crucian Christmas Carnival, is celebrated on St. Croix throughout late December and early January.

Among them are St. Patrick's Catholic Church, built in the 1840s, and its primary school, the Customs House; the 19th-century Apothecary; and many other buildings, some of which hurricanes have transformed into scenic ruins.

Salt River Bay National Historical Park and Ecological Preserve contains the only known site where members of a Columbus expedition set foot on what is now U.S. territory.

Buck Island maintains a U.S. Coast Guard weather station and is home to a student-monitored lemon shark breeding ground.

Two of the island's most popular underwater sites for scuba divers are the Frederiksted Pier and the drop-off into deep water at Salt River Bay National Historical Park and Ecological Preserve.

[37][38] A few hundred meters off the northern coast of the island, from Salt River to Cane Bay, the bottom drops suddenly into a deep trench, where coral reefs, abundant tropical fish, and migrant sea turtles may be observed.

Water quality and taxonomic analysis from both studies will be shared and correlated to create one of the most thorough investigations of year-round bioluminescent bays to date.