Tortola is the largest and most populated of the British Virgin Islands a group of islands that form part of the archipelago of the Virgin Islands. Local tradition recounts that Christopher Columbus named it Tortola, meaning land of the Turtle Dove. Columbus named the island Santa Ana. The later Dutch settled and called it Ter Tholen, after a coastal island forming part of the west coast of the Netherlands. When the British took over they altered the name to its present-day Tortola.