Galveston, Texas is an island in the Gulf of Mexico, near Houston (with apologies to Texans if I've missed an important city that is closer, Texas is a long way from where I'm writing). Galveston Isle and its neighbouring Galveston Island are found in the more familiar (to me anyway) setting of Second Life.
"What's so special about that?" I hear you cry. Well, as far as we know Galveston is the first city to officially advertise its presence in Second Life. The pair of islands are paid for and run by the . They even run a specialist part of their Tourism and Visitor board website to discuss progress. 
Building in Galveston is still a work in progress, but already there are some nice parts of the sim to look at. How successful this project will be in the long term we don't know yet, but we wish them well.
I have seen other tourist builds within Second Life which mimic Real Life, most notably to my mind the rebuild of the Lisbon Opera House (sadly my only photo of it shows Martian tripods attacking it) from before the disasters struck it. But an island or two directly run by the tourism board seems like a step into the right direction. I wonder who will be next? I'd like to see a virtual Ice Hotel I think, wouldn't you?
1. I am not sure when Galveston first advertised, but our city, LaSalle, in Illinois set up a small site in January of 2007 and received press coverage in our local paper and in the Peoria Journal Star at that time.
We are a much smaller city so at this point we only have a small area but are hoping to expand the site soon.
Posted at 7:27PM on Apr 20th 2007 by Pam Broviak