The British island and county of Isle of Wight it about three to five miles to the coast on the south side of the English Channel's mainland. Solent separates it from the mainland with it being south of Hampshire county. The island's natural beauty is well known and has sailing that is famous all over the word located at Cowes. The resorts there have been well visited since Victorian times and are a popular vacation spot.

In the 15th Century the island was once an independent kingdom. It had a governor until 1995. Alfred Lord Tennyson, a poet, once lived here. As well as Queen Victoria who constructed her summer residence here that she always loved plus her last home on East Cowes called Osborn House. The history of the Island's industries and maritime include the building of boats and sales including flying boats, hovercrafts that were the first in the world. Also this is where the British space rockets are tested and developed.

There are several festivals held here. The Isle of Wight International Jazz Festival and Bestival plus the Isle of Wight Festival that has recently been revamped. The largest rock concert ever held was put on at this festival in 1970. The island has the biggest discovery of dinosaur fossils in all of Europe as well as an extraordinary collection of wildlife. The Isle of Wight was previously encompassed by Hampshire but by 1890 it had set itself up as an independent county of administration but it still shared Lord Lieutenant of Hampshire as its representative.

It was reset up as a non-metropolitan county in 1974 and was given a Lord Lieutenant of its own with recognition as a postal county. It gets one representative Member of Parliament to serve the over 130,000 residents. It is recorded as having the largest population of all the constituencies of the parliament in the UK. The Island saw repeated bombing during WWII because of its closeness to France it had several stations set up for the transmission and observation. It was a beginning point for an early operation called Operation Pluto that had pipeline set up to fuel the Normandy landings.

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