A playground in the English Channel, the Isle of Wight is known for its beauty and pleasant climate. The island lies off Portsmouth, England, separated from the mainland by a strait known as The Solent. It is 23 miles (37 kilometers) east to west and 14 miles (23 kilometers) north to south, with an area of 147 square miles (381 square kilometers). An isthmus joins the island’s two parts.
The Isle of Wight is popular with golfers and is internationally known to yachtsmen. Tourists visit Farringford, where Alfred, Lord Tennyson lived; Shanklin, where John Keats wrote; and Algernon Charles Swinburne’s grave at New St. Boniface.
Newport is the chief town. Cowes, home of the Royal Yacht Squadron, is the main port. Fashionable resorts are at Cowes, Ryde, Sandown-Shanklin, and Ventnor.
There are traces of human habitation from the Bronze Age. Vespasian conquered the Isle of Wight for the Roman Empire in ad 43. Danish pirates invaded it frequently. The French attacked it several times from the 14th to the 16th century. In 1647 Charles I fled from Oliver Cromwell’s forces and escaped to the Isle of Wight. About a year later he was recaptured and executed. Queen Victoria was another resident. She died in Osborne House, near Cowes, in 1901. The island became an administrative county in 1890. Population (2011 census), 138,265.