The Turks and Caicos Islands are a British Overseas Territory consisting of the larger Caicos Islands and smaller Turks Islands, two groups of tropical islands in the Lucayan Archipelago of the Atlantic Ocean and northern West Indies.
The islands are southeast of Mayaguana in the Bahamas island chain and north of the island of Hispaniola (Haiti and the Dominican Republic). Grand Turk (Cockburn Town), the capital since 1766, is situated on Grand Turk Island.
For many years they were governed indirectly through Bermuda, the Bahamas and Jamaica. When the Bahamas gained independence in 1973, the islands received their own governor, and have remained an autonomous territory since.