St Helier

St Helier is the capital of Jersey, the largest of the Channel Islands in the English Channel, and it is the island's only town. It is also the most populous of Jersey's twelve parishes, with 35,822 residents at the 2021 census, a little over one third of the island's total population. The built-up town takes in the area around First Tower and parts of the neighbouring parishes of St Saviour and St Clement, with further suburbs spreading into other parishes. The parish as a whole covers about 10.6 square kilometres, roughly nine percent of the island's land, including reclaimed land, and most of it is rural. The town itself sits on the coast in the southeastern corner of the parish and holds the main commercial district and the island's principal harbour. As capital it hosts the government, parliament and courts of Jersey. Settlement is evidenced from the 13th century, and the town's growth since then has been uneven, shaped by successive waves of migration. The parish arms show two crossed gold axes on a blue ground, the blue standing for the sea and the axes for the martyrdom of Helier, killed by Saxon pirates in 555.