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Virgin Islands National Park
Caribbean park covering most of St. John and its reefs
Coral reefs, white-sand bays and dry tropical forest cover most of St. John in the U.S. Virgin Islands, and nearly all of it is national park. The park protects about 60 percent of the island's land along with more than 5,500 acres (22 km²) of surrounding sea, for a total of about 23 square miles (60 km²). It exists largely because of Laurance Rockefeller, whose Jackson Hole Preserve bought more than 5,000 acres on St. John and donated them to the federal government. Congress established the park on August 2, 1956.
Trunk Bay, with its marked underwater snorkeling trail, is the park's best-known beach, and dozens of trails cross the island's steep hills. The ruins of the Annaberg sugar mill recall the plantation era, when enslaved Africans worked the island's cane fields, and St. John was the site of a major slave rebellion in 1733 under Danish rule. Taíno petroglyphs survive at Reef Bay. Hurricanes Irma and Maria struck in September 2017 and damaged much of the park, but it has since recovered most of its visitors.