state
State may refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media Literature
* ''State Magazine'', a monthly magazine published by the U.S. Department of State
* ''The State'' (newspaper), a daily newspaper in Columbia, South Carolina, United States
* ''Our S ...
in the
Western
Western may refer to:
Places
*Western, Nebraska, a village in the US
*Western, New York, a town in the US
*Western Creek, Tasmania, a locality in Australia
*Western Junction, Tasmania, a locality in Australia
*Western world, countries that id ...
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...
, located in the
Pacific Ocean
The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean (or, depending on definition, to Antarctica) in the south, and is bounded by the continen ...
about from the U.S. mainland. It is the only U.S. state outside
North America
North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere and almost entirely within the Western Hemisphere. It is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South America and the Car ...
, the only state that is an
archipelago
An archipelago ( ), sometimes called an island group or island chain, is a chain, cluster, or collection of islands, or sometimes a sea containing a small number of scattered islands.
Examples of archipelagos include: the Indonesian Archi ...
, and the only state geographically located within the
tropics
The tropics are the regions of Earth surrounding the Equator. They are defined in latitude by the Tropic of Cancer in the Northern Hemisphere at N and the Tropic of Capricorn in
the Southern Hemisphere at S. The tropics are also referred to ...
Hawaiian archipelago
The Hawaiian Islands ( haw, Nā Mokupuni o Hawai‘i) are an archipelago of eight major islands, several atolls, and numerous smaller islets in the North Pacific Ocean, extending some from the island of Hawaii in the south to northernmost Kur ...
, 137
volcanic islands
Geologically, a high island or volcanic island is an island of volcanic origin. The term can be used to distinguish such islands from low islands, which are formed from sedimentation or the uplifting of coral reefs (which have often formed ...
Polynesia
Polynesia () "many" and νῆσος () "island"), to, Polinisia; mi, Porinihia; haw, Polenekia; fj, Polinisia; sm, Polenisia; rar, Porinetia; ty, Pōrīnetia; tvl, Polenisia; tkl, Polenihia (, ) is a subregion of Oceania, made up of ...
n subregion of Oceania. The state's ocean coastline is consequently the fourth-longest in the U.S., at about . The eight main islands, from northwest to southeast, are
Niihau
Niihau ( Hawaiian: ), anglicized as Niihau ( ), is the westernmost main and seventh largest inhabited island in Hawaii. It is southwest of Kauaʻi across the Kaulakahi Channel. Its area is . Several intermittent playa lakes provide wetland hab ...
,
Kauai
Kauai, () anglicized as Kauai ( ), is geologically the second-oldest of the main Hawaiian Islands (after Niʻihau). With an area of 562.3 square miles (1,456.4 km2), it is the fourth-largest of these islands and the 21st largest island ...
,
Oahu
Oahu () (Hawaiian language, Hawaiian: ''Oʻahu'' ()), also known as "The Gathering place#Island of Oʻahu as The Gathering Place, Gathering Place", is the third-largest of the Hawaiian Islands. It is home to roughly one million people—over t ...
,
Molokai
Molokai , or Molokai (), is the fifth most populated of the eight major islands that make up the Hawaiian Islands, Hawaiian Islands archipelago in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. It is 38 by 10 miles (61 by 16 km) at its greatest length an ...
Kahoolawe
Kahoolawe (Hawaiian: ), anglicized as Kahoolawe (), is the smallest of the eight main volcanic islands in the Hawaiian Islands. Kahoolawe is located about southwest of Maui and also southeast of Lānaʻi, and it is long by wide, with a total ...
,
Maui
The island of Maui (; Hawaiian: ) is the second-largest of the islands of the state of Hawaii at 727.2 square miles (1,883 km2) and is the 17th largest island in the United States. Maui is the largest of Maui County's four islands, which ...
, and
Hawaii
Hawaii ( ; haw, Hawaii or ) is a state in the Western United States, located in the Pacific Ocean about from the U.S. mainland. It is the only U.S. state outside North America, the only state that is an archipelago, and the only stat ...
—the last of these, after which the state is named, is often called the "Big Island" or "Hawaii Island" to avoid confusion with the state or archipelago. The uninhabited
Northwestern Hawaiian Islands
The Northwestern Hawaiian Islands or Leeward Hawaiian Islands are a series of islands and atolls in the Hawaiian island chain located northwest (in some cases, far to the northwest) of the islands of Kauai and Niihau. Politically, they are all p ...
make up most of the
Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument
The Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument (PMNM) (roughly ) is a World Heritage Site, World Heritage listed National Monument (United States), U.S. National Monument encompassing of ocean waters, including ten islands and atolls of th ...
U.S. states
In the United States, a state is a constituent political entity, of which there are 50. Bound together in a political union, each state holds governmental jurisdiction over a separate and defined geographic territory where it shares its sover ...
Honolulu
Honolulu (; ) is the capital and largest city of the U.S. state of Hawaii, which is in the Pacific Ocean. It is an unincorporated county seat of the consolidated City and County of Honolulu, situated along the southeast coast of the island ...
. Hawaii is among the country's most diverse states, owing to its central location in the Pacific and over two centuries of migration. As one of only six majority-minority states, it has the country's only Asian American plurality, its largest Buddhist community, and the largest proportion of
multiracial people
Mixed race people are people of more than one race or ethnicity. A variety of terms have been used both historically and presently for mixed race people in a variety of contexts, including ''multiethnic'', ''polyethnic'', occasionally ''bi-ethn ...
. Consequently, it is a unique
melting pot
The melting pot is a monocultural metaphor for a heterogeneous society becoming more homogeneous, the different elements "melting together" with a common culture; an alternative being a homogeneous society becoming more heterogeneous throug ...
of North American and
East Asian
East Asia is the eastern region of Asia, which is defined in both geographical and ethno-cultural terms. The modern states of East Asia include China, Japan, Mongolia, North Korea, South Korea, and Taiwan. China, North Korea, South Korea a ...
Polynesians
Polynesians form an ethnolinguistic group of closely related people who are native to Polynesia (islands in the Polynesian Triangle), an expansive region of Oceania in the Pacific Ocean. They trace their early prehistoric origins to Island Sou ...
some time between 1000 and 1200 CE, Hawaii was home to numerous independent chiefdoms. In 1778, British explorer
James Cook
James Cook (7 November 1728 Old Style date: 27 October – 14 February 1779) was a British explorer, navigator, cartographer, and captain in the British Royal Navy, famous for his three voyages between 1768 and 1779 in the Pacific Ocean an ...
was the first known non-Polynesian to arrive at the archipelago; early British influence is reflected in the
state flag
In vexillology, a state flag is either the flag of the government of a sovereign state, or the flag of an individual federated state (subnational administrative division).
Government flag
A state flag is a variant of a national flag (or occas ...
, which bears a
Union Jack
The Union Jack, or Union Flag, is the ''de facto'' national flag of the United Kingdom. Although no law has been passed making the Union Flag the official national flag of the United Kingdom, it has effectively become such through precedent. ...
. An influx of European and American explorers, traders, and whalers arrived shortly after leading to the decimation of the once isolated Indigenous community by introducing diseases such as syphilis, gonorrhea, tuberculosis, smallpox, measles, leprosy, and typhoid fever, reducing the native Hawaiian population from between 300,000 and one million to less than 40,000 by 1890.
Hawaii became a unified, internationally recognized
kingdom
Kingdom commonly refers to:
* A monarchy ruled by a king or queen
* Kingdom (biology), a category in biological taxonomy
Kingdom may also refer to:
Arts and media Television
* ''Kingdom'' (British TV series), a 2007 British television drama s ...
U.S. territory
In the United States, a territory is any extent of region under the sovereign jurisdiction of the federal government of the United States, including all waters (around islands or continental tracts). The United States asserts sovereign rights for ...
, Hawaii was attacked by Japan on December 7, 1941, which brought it global and historical significance, and contributed to America's decisive entry into World War II. Hawaii is the most recent state to join the union, on August 21, 1959. In 1993, the U.S. government formally apologized for its role in the overthrow of Hawaii's government, which spurred the
Hawaiian sovereignty movement
The Hawaiian sovereignty movement ( haw, ke ea Hawaiʻi), is a grassroots political and cultural campaign to re-establish an autonomous or independent nation or kingdom of Hawaii due to desire for sovereignty, self-determination, and self-gove ...
.
Historically dominated by a
plantation economy
A plantation economy is an economy based on agricultural mass production, usually of a few commodity crops, grown on large farms worked by laborers or slaves. The properties are called plantations. Plantation economies rely on the export of cas ...
, Hawaii remains a major agricultural exporter due to its fertile soil and uniquely tropical climate in the U.S. Its economy has gradually diversified since the mid-20th century, with tourism and military defense becoming the two largest sectors. The state attracts tourists, surfers, and scientists from around the world with its diverse natural scenery, warm tropical climate, abundance of public beaches, oceanic surroundings, active volcanoes, and clear skies on the Big Island. Hawaii hosts the
U.S. Pacific Fleet
The United States Pacific Fleet (USPACFLT) is a theater-level component command of the United States Navy, located in the Pacific Ocean. It provides naval forces to the Indo-Pacific Command. Fleet headquarters is at Joint Base Pearl Harbor ...
, the world's largest naval command, as well as 75,000 employees of the Defense Department.
Although its relative isolation results in one of the highest
costs of living
Cost of living is the cost of maintaining a certain standard of living. Changes in the cost of living over time can be operationalized in a cost-of-living index. Cost of living calculations are also used to compare the cost of maintaining a cer ...
in the United States, Hawaii is the third-wealthiest state.
Etymology
The State of Hawaii derives its name from the name of its largest island, . A common Hawaiian explanation of the name of is that it was named for , a legendary figure from Hawaiian myth. He is said to have discovered the islands when they were first settled.
The
Hawaiian language
Hawaiian (', ) is a Polynesian language of the Austronesian language family that takes its name from Hawaii, the largest island in the tropical North Pacific archipelago where it developed. Hawaiian, along with English, is an official language o ...
word is very similar to
Proto-Polynesian
Proto-Polynesian (abbreviated PPn) is the hypothetical proto-language from which all the modern Polynesian languages descend. It is a daughter language of the Proto-Austronesian language. Historical linguists have reconstructed the language using ...
''Sawaiki'', with the reconstructed meaning "homeland".
Cognate
In historical linguistics, cognates or lexical cognates are sets of words in different languages that have been inherited in direct descent from an etymology, etymological ancestor in a proto-language, common parent language. Because language c ...
s of are found in other Polynesian languages, including
Māori
Māori or Maori can refer to:
Relating to the Māori people
* Māori people of New Zealand, or members of that group
* Māori language, the language of the Māori people of New Zealand
* Māori culture
* Cook Islanders, the Māori people of the C ...
(), Rarotongan () and Samoan (). According to linguists Pukui and Elbert, "elsewhere in Polynesia, or a cognate is the name of the underworld or of the ancestral home, but in Hawaii, the name has no meaning".
Spelling of state name
In 1978, Hawaiian was added to the Constitution of the State of Hawaii as an official state language alongside English. The title of the state constitution is ''The Constitution of the State of Hawaii''. ArticleXV, Section1 of the Constitution uses ''The State of Hawaii''.
Diacritic
A diacritic (also diacritical mark, diacritical point, diacritical sign, or accent) is a glyph added to a letter or to a basic glyph. The term derives from the Ancient Greek (, "distinguishing"), from (, "to distinguish"). The word ''diacriti ...
s were not used because the document, drafted in 1949, predates the use of the and the in modern Hawaiian orthography. The exact spelling of the state's name in the Hawaiian language is . In the
Hawaii Admission Act
The Admission Act, formally An Act to Provide for the Admission of the State of Hawaii into the Union () is a statute enacted by the United States Congress and signed into law by President Dwight D. Eisenhower which dissolved the Territory of Haw ...
that granted Hawaiian statehood, the federal government recognized ''Hawaii'' as the official state name. Official government publications, department and office titles, and the
Seal of Hawaii
The Great Seal of the State of Hawaii was designated officially by Act 272 of the 1959 Territorial Legislature and is based on the territorial seal. Modifications to the territorial seal included the use of the words "State of Hawaii" at the top ...
use the traditional spelling with no symbols for glottal stops or vowel length.
Geography and environment
There are eight main Hawaiian islands. Seven are inhabited, but only six are open to tourists and locals. Niihau is privately managed by brothers Bruce and Keith Robinson; access is restricted to those who have their permission. This island is also home to native Hawaiians. Access to uninhabited
Kahoʻolawe
Kahoolawe (Hawaiian: ), anglicized as Kahoolawe (), is the smallest of the eight main volcano, volcanic islands in the Hawaiian Islands. Kahoolawe is located about southwest of Maui and also southeast of Lanai, Lānaʻi, and it is long by wide ...
island is also restricted and anyone who enters without permission will be arrested. This island may also be dangerous since it was a military base during the world wars and could still have unexploded ordnance.
Topography
The Hawaiian
archipelago
An archipelago ( ), sometimes called an island group or island chain, is a chain, cluster, or collection of islands, or sometimes a sea containing a small number of scattered islands.
Examples of archipelagos include: the Indonesian Archi ...
is southwest of the contiguous United States. Hawaii is the southernmost U.S. state and the second westernmost after
Alaska
Alaska ( ; russian: Аляска, Alyaska; ale, Alax̂sxax̂; ; ems, Alas'kaaq; Yup'ik: ''Alaskaq''; tli, Anáaski) is a state located in the Western United States on the northwest extremity of North America. A semi-exclave of the U.S., ...
. Hawaii, like Alaska, does not border any other U.S. state. It is the only U.S. state that is not geographically located in North America, the only state completely surrounded by water and that is entirely an archipelago, and the only state in which coffee is commercially cultivable.
In addition to the eight main islands, the state has many smaller islands and islets.
Kaula Kaula may refer to:
People
* Prithvi Nath Kaula (1924–2009), Indian librarian
* William J. Kaula (1871–1953), American watercolor painter
* William M. Kaula (1926–2000), Australian-born American geophysicist
Other uses
* USS ''Kaula'' (AG-3 ...
is a small island near Niihau. The
Northwestern Hawaiian Islands
The Northwestern Hawaiian Islands or Leeward Hawaiian Islands are a series of islands and atolls in the Hawaiian island chain located northwest (in some cases, far to the northwest) of the islands of Kauai and Niihau. Politically, they are all p ...
is a group of nine small, older islands to the northwest of Kauai that extend from
Nihoa
Nihoa (; haw, Nīhoa ), also known as Bird Island or Moku Manu, is the tallest of ten islands and atolls in the uninhabited Northwestern Hawaiian Islands (NWHI). The island is located at the southern end of the NWHI chain, southeast of N ...
to
Kure Atoll
Kure Atoll (; haw, Hōlanikū, translation=bringing forth heaven; haw, Mokupāpapa, translation=flat island, label=none) or Ocean Island is an atoll in the Pacific Ocean west-northwest of Midway Atoll in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands a ...
; these are remnants of once much larger volcanic mountains. Across the archipelago are around 130 small rocks and islets, such as
Molokini
Molokini is a crescent-shaped, partially submerged volcanic crater which forms a small, uninhabited islet located in ʻAlalākeiki Channel between the islands of Maui and Kahoolawe, within Maui County in Hawaii. It is the remains of one of the s ...
, which are either volcanic, marine sedimentary or erosional in origin.
Hawaii's tallest mountain
Mauna Kea
Mauna Kea ( or ; ; abbreviation for ''Mauna a Wākea''); is a dormant volcano on the island of Hawaii. Its peak is above sea level, making it the highest point in the state of Hawaii and second-highest peak of an island on Earth. The peak is ...
is above mean sea level; it is taller than
Mount Everest
Mount Everest (; Tibetan: ''Chomolungma'' ; ) is Earth's highest mountain above sea level, located in the Mahalangur Himal sub-range of the Himalayas. The China–Nepal border runs across its summit point. Its elevation (snow heig ...
if measured from the base of the mountain, which lies on the floor of the Pacific Ocean and rises about .
Geology
The Hawaiian islands were formed by volcanic activity initiated at an undersea
magma
Magma () is the molten or semi-molten natural material from which all igneous rocks are formed. Magma is found beneath the surface of the Earth, and evidence of magmatism has also been discovered on other terrestrial planets and some natural sa ...
source called the
Hawaii hotspot
The Hawaii hotspot is a volcanic hotspot located near the namesake Hawaiian Islands, in the northern Pacific Ocean. One of the best known and intensively studied hotspots in the world, the Hawaii plume is responsible for the creation of the ...
. The process is continuing to build islands; the
tectonic plate
Plate tectonics (from the la, label=Late Latin, tectonicus, from the grc, τεκτονικός, lit=pertaining to building) is the generally accepted scientific theory that considers the Earth's lithosphere to comprise a number of large te ...
beneath much of the Pacific Ocean continually moves northwest and the hot spot remains stationary, slowly creating new volcanoes. Because of the hotspot's location, all currently active land volcanoes are located on the southern half of Hawaii Island. The newest volcano, Kamaʻehuakanaloa (formerly Lōihi), is located south of the coast of Hawaii Island.
The last volcanic eruption outside Hawaii Island occurred at on Maui before the late 18thcentury, possibly hundreds of years earlier. In 1790, Kīlauea exploded; it was the deadliest eruption known to have occurred in the modern era in what is now the United States. Up to 5,405 warriors and their families marching on
Kīlauea
Kīlauea ( , ) is an active shield volcano in the Hawaiian Islands. Located along the southeastern shore of the Big Island of Hawaii, the volcano is between 210,000 and 280,000 years old and emerged above sea level about 100,000 years ago. Hi ...
were killed by the eruption. Volcanic activity and subsequent erosion have created impressive geological features. Hawaii Island has the second-highest point among the world's islands.
On the flanks of the volcanoes, slope instability has generated damaging earthquakes and related
tsunami
A tsunami ( ; from ja, 津波, lit=harbour wave, ) is a series of waves in a water body caused by the displacement of a large volume of water, generally in an ocean or a large lake. Earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and other underwater explo ...
s, particularly in
1868
Events
January–March
* January 2 – British Expedition to Abyssinia: Robert Napier leads an expedition to free captive British officials and missionaries.
* January 3 – The 15-year-old Mutsuhito, Emperor Meiji of Jap ...
and
1975
It was also declared the ''International Women's Year'' by the United Nations and the European Architectural Heritage Year by the Council of Europe.
Events
January
* January 1 - Watergate scandal (United States): John N. Mitchell, H. R. ...
. Steep cliffs have been created by catastrophic
debris avalanche
Debris flows are geological phenomena in which water-laden masses of soil and fragmented rock rush down mountainsides, funnel into stream channels, entrain objects in their paths, and form thick, muddy deposits on valley floors. They generally ...
s on the submerged flanks of ocean island volcanoes.
erupted in May 2018, opening 22 fissure vents on its eastern
rift zone
A rift zone is a feature of some volcanoes, especially shield volcanoes, in which a set of linear cracks (or rifts) develops in a volcanic edifice, typically forming into two or three well-defined regions along the flanks of the vent. Believed t ...
. The
Leilani Estates
Leilani Estates is a census-designated place (CDP) in Hawaiʻi County, Hawaii, United States located in the District of Puna. The subdivision was formed in 1964. The population was 1,139 at the 2020 census, down from 1,560 at the 2010 censu ...
and Lanipuna Gardens are situated within this territory. The eruption destroyed at least 36 buildings and this, coupled with the
lava
Lava is molten or partially molten rock (magma) that has been expelled from the interior of a terrestrial planet (such as Earth) or a moon onto its surface. Lava may be erupted at a volcano or through a fracture in the crust, on land or un ...
flows and the
sulfur dioxide
Sulfur dioxide (IUPAC-recommended spelling) or sulphur dioxide (traditional Commonwealth English) is the chemical compound with the formula . It is a toxic gas responsible for the odor of burnt matches. It is released naturally by volcanic activ ...
fumes, necessitated the evacuation of more than 2,000 local inhabitants from their neighborhoods.
Flora and fauna
The islands of Hawaii are distant from other land habitats, and life is thought to have arrived there by wind, waves (i.e., by ocean currents), and wings (i.e., birds, insects, and any seeds that they may have carried on their feathers). Hawaii has more endangered species and has lost a higher percentage of its endemic species than any other U.S. state. The endemic plant ''
Brighamia
The Hawaiian lobelioids are a group of flowering plants in the bellflower family, Campanulaceae, subfamily Lobelioideae, all of which are endemic to the Hawaiian Islands. This is the largest plant radiation in the Hawaiian Islands, and indeed the ...
'' now requires hand-pollination because its natural pollinator is presumed to be extinct. The two species of ''Brighamia''—''B. rockii'' and ''B. insignis''—are represented in the wild by around 120 individual plants. To ensure that these plants set seed, biologists rappel down cliffs to brush pollen onto their stigmas.
Terrestrial ecology
The extant main islands of the
archipelago
An archipelago ( ), sometimes called an island group or island chain, is a chain, cluster, or collection of islands, or sometimes a sea containing a small number of scattered islands.
Examples of archipelagos include: the Indonesian Archi ...
have been above the surface of the ocean for fewer than 10million years; a fraction of the time
biological colonization
Colonisation or colonization is the process in biology by which a species spreads to new areas. Colonisation often refers to ''successful'' immigration where a population becomes integrated into an ecological community, having resisted initial ...
and evolution have occurred there. The islands are well known for the environmental diversity that occurs on high mountains within a trade winds field. Native Hawaiians developed complex horticultural practices to utilize the surrounding ecosystem for agriculture. Cultural practices developed to enshrine values of environmental stewardship and reciprocity with the natural world, resulting in widespread biodiversity and intricate social and environmental relationships that persist to this day. On a single island, the climate around the coasts can range from dry tropical (less than annual rainfall) to wet tropical; on the slopes, environments range from
tropical rainforest
Tropical rainforests are rainforests that occur in areas of tropical rainforest climate in which there is no dry season – all months have an average precipitation of at least 60 mm – and may also be referred to as ''lowland equatori ...
(more than per year), through a
temperate climate
In geography, the temperate climates of Earth occur in the middle latitudes (23.5° to 66.5° N/S of Equator), which span between the tropics and the polar regions of Earth. These zones generally have wider temperature ranges throughout t ...
, to
alpine
Alpine may refer to any mountainous region. It may also refer to:
Places Europe
* Alps, a European mountain range
** Alpine states, which overlap with the European range
Australia
* Alpine, New South Wales, a Northern Village
* Alpine National Pa ...
conditions with a cold, dry climate. The rainy climate impacts soil development, which largely determines ground permeability, affecting the distribution of streams and
wetlands
A wetland is a distinct ecosystem that is flooded or saturated by water, either permanently (for years or decades) or seasonally (for weeks or months). Flooding results in oxygen-free (anoxic) processes prevailing, especially in the soils. The ...
.
Protected areas
Several areas in Hawaii are under the protection of the
National Park Service
The National Park Service (NPS) is an agency of the United States federal government within the U.S. Department of the Interior that manages all national parks, most national monuments, and other natural, historical, and recreational propertie ...
. Hawaii has two national parks:
Haleakalā National Park
Haleakalā National Park is an American national park located on the island of Maui in the state of Hawaii. Named after Haleakalā, a dormant volcano within its boundaries, the park covers an area of , of which is a wilderness area. The land wa ...
located near
Kula
Kula, which translates as ''Tower'' from Serbo-Croatian, may refer to:
People
*Bob Kula, American football player
*Irwin Kula (born 1957), American rabbi and author
*Karel Kula (born 1963), Czech footballer
Places
* Kula, Bihać, a village in ...
on the island of Maui, which features the dormant volcano Haleakalā that formed east Maui, and
Hawaii Volcanoes National Park
Hawaii ( ; haw, Hawaii or ) is a state in the Western United States, located in the Pacific Ocean about from the U.S. mainland. It is the only U.S. state outside North America, the only state that is an archipelago, and the only state ...
in the southeast region of the Hawaii Island, which includes the active volcano Kīlauea and its rift zones.
There are three
national historical park
National Historic Site (NHS) is a designation for an officially recognized area of national historic significance in the United States. An NHS usually contains a single historical feature directly associated with its subject. The National Historic ...
s;
Kalaupapa National Historical Park
Kalaupapa National Historical Park is a United States National Historical Park located in Kalaupapa, Hawaii, on the island of Molokai. Coterminous with the boundaries of Kalawao County and primarily on Kalaupapa peninsula, it was established by ...
in Kalaupapa, Molokai, the site of a former leper colony;
Kaloko-Honokōhau National Historical Park
Kaloko-Honokōhau National Historical Park is a United States National Historical Park located in the Kona District on the Big island of Hawaii in the U.S. state of Hawaii. It includes the National Historic Landmarked archaeological site known ...
in
Kailua-Kona
Kailua-Kona is an unincorporated community and census-designated place (CDP) in Hawaii County, Hawaii, United States. It is also known as Kailua (a name it shares with a community located on the windward side of Oahu), as Kona (a name it shares ...
on Hawaii Island; and Puuhonua o Hōnaunau National Historical Park, an ancient place of refuge on Hawaii Island's west coast. Other areas under the control of the National Park Service include
Ala Kahakai National Historic Trail
Ala Kahakai National Historic Trail is a long trail located on the island of Hawaii. It is not yet a single continuous trail, but can be accessed at several broken segments along the coastline of the Big Island. The trail was established to acc ...
Pearl Harbor
Pearl Harbor is an American lagoon harbor on the island of Oahu, Hawaii, west of Honolulu. It was often visited by the Naval fleet of the United States, before it was acquired from the Hawaiian Kingdom by the U.S. with the signing of the Re ...
on Oahu.
The
Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument
The Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument (PMNM) (roughly ) is a World Heritage Site, World Heritage listed National Monument (United States), U.S. National Monument encompassing of ocean waters, including ten islands and atolls of th ...
was proclaimed by President
George W. Bush
George Walker Bush (born July 6, 1946) is an American politician who served as the 43rd president of the United States from 2001 to 2009. A member of the Republican Party, Bush family, and son of the 41st president George H. W. Bush, he ...
on June 15, 2006. The monument covers roughly of reefs, atolls, and shallow and deep sea out to offshore in the Pacific Ocean—an area larger than all the national parks in the U.S. combined.
Climate
Hawaii has a tropical climate. Temperatures and humidity tend to be less extreme because of near-constant
trade winds
The trade winds or easterlies are the permanent east-to-west prevailing winds that flow in the Earth's equatorial region. The trade winds blow mainly from the northeast in the Northern Hemisphere and from the southeast in the Southern Hemisph ...
from the east. Summer highs usually reach around during the day, with the temperature reaching a low of at night. Winter day temperatures are usually around ; at low elevation they seldom dip below at night. Snow, not usually associated with the tropics, falls at on Mauna Kea and
Mauna Loa
Mauna Loa ( or ; Hawaiian: ; en, Long Mountain) is one of five volcanoes that form the Island of Hawaii in the U.S. state of Hawaii in the Pacific Ocean. The largest subaerial volcano (as opposed to subaqueous volcanoes) in both mass and ...
on Hawaii Island in some winter months. Snow rarely falls on Haleakalā.
Mount Waialeale
Mount Waialeale is a shield volcano and the second highest point on the island of Kauai in the Hawaiian Islands. Its name literally means "rippling water" or "overflowing water"
The mountain, at an elevation of , averages more than of rain a ...
on Kauai has the second-highest average annual rainfall on Earth, about per year. Most of Hawaii experiences only two seasons; the dry season runs from May to October and the wet season is from October to April.
The warmest temperature recorded in the state, in
Pahala
Pahala is a census-designated place (CDP) in Hawaii County, Hawaii, United States. The population was 1,403 at the 2020 census.
History
Pahala was created by a sugarcane plantation. The area selected to house the sugar refinery had several ke ...
on April 27, 1931, is , making it tied with
Alaska
Alaska ( ; russian: Аляска, Alyaska; ale, Alax̂sxax̂; ; ems, Alas'kaaq; Yup'ik: ''Alaskaq''; tli, Anáaski) is a state located in the Western United States on the northwest extremity of North America. A semi-exclave of the U.S., ...
as the lowest record high temperature observed in a U.S. state. Hawaii's record low temperature is observed in May1979, on the summit of
Mauna Kea
Mauna Kea ( or ; ; abbreviation for ''Mauna a Wākea''); is a dormant volcano on the island of Hawaii. Its peak is above sea level, making it the highest point in the state of Hawaii and second-highest peak of an island on Earth. The peak is ...
. Hawaii is the only state to have never recorded sub-zero Fahrenheit temperatures.
Climates vary considerably on each island; they can be divided into
windward and leeward
Windward () and leeward () are terms used to describe the direction of the wind. Windward is ''upwind'' from the point of reference, i.e. towards the direction from which the wind is coming; leeward is ''downwind'' from the point of reference ...
(''koolau'' and ''kona'', respectively) areas based upon location relative to the higher mountains. Windward sides face cloud cover.
Environmental issues
Hawaii has a decades-long history of hosting more military space for the United States than any other territory or state. This record of military activity has taken a sharp toll on the environmental health of the Hawaiian archipelago, degrading its beaches and soil, and making some places entirely unsafe to go due to unexploded ordinances. According to scholar
Winona LaDuke
Winona LaDuke (born August 18, 1959) is an American economist, environmentalist, writer and industrial hemp grower, known for her work on tribal land claims and preservation, as well as sustainable development.
In 1996 and 2000, she ran for Vice ...
: "The vast militarization of Hawaii has profoundly damaged the land. According to the Environmental Protection Agency, there are more federal hazardous waste sites in Hawaii – 31 – than in any other U.S. state." Hawaii State Representative
Roy Takumi
Roy M. Takumi (born October 13, 1952 in Honolulu, Hawaii) is an American politician and a Democratic member of the Hawaii House of Representatives since January 16, 2013 representing District 35. Takumi consecutively served from January 1993 unt ...
writes in "Challenging U.S. Militarism in Hawai'i and Okinawa" that these military bases and hazardous waste sites have meant "the confiscation of large tracts of land from native peoples" and quotes late Hawaiian activist George Helm as asking: "What is national defense when what is being destroyed is the very thing the military is entrusted to defend, the sacred land of Hawaii?" Contemporary Indigenous Hawaiians are still protesting the occupation of their homelands and environmental degradation due to increased militarization in the wake of 9/11.
After the rise of sugarcane plantations in the mid 19th century, island ecology changed dramatically. Plantations require massive quantities of water, and European and American plantation owners transformed the land in order to access it; primarily through construction of tunnels to divert water from the mountains to the plantations, reservoir construction, and well digging. These changes have made lasting impacts on the land and continue to contribute to resource scarcity for Native Hawaiians today.
According to Stanford scientist and scholar Sibyl Diver, Indigenous Hawaiians engage in a reciprocal relationship with the land, "based on principles of mutual caretaking, reciprocity and sharing". This relationship ensures the longevity, sustainability, and natural cycles of growth and decay, as well as cultivating a sense of respect for the land and humility towards one's place in an ecosystem.
The ongoing expansion of the tourism industry and its pressure on local systems of ecology, cultural tradition and infrastructure in Hawaii is creating a conflict between economic and environmental health. In 2020, the Center for Biological Diversity reported on the plastic pollution of Hawaii's Kamilo beach, citing "massive piles of plastic waste". There are also issues such as the spread of invasive species, and the contamination of groundwater and coastal waters from chemical and pathogenic runoff.
History
Hawaii is one of two states that were widely recognized independent nations prior to joining the United States. The
Kingdom of Hawaii
The Hawaiian Kingdom, or Kingdom of Hawaiʻi ( Hawaiian: ''Ko Hawaiʻi Pae ʻĀina''), was a sovereign state located in the Hawaiian Islands. The country was formed in 1795, when the warrior chief Kamehameha the Great, of the independent island ...
was sovereign from 1810 until 1893 when the monarchy was overthrown by resident American and European capitalists and landholders. Hawaii was an independent republic from 1894 until August 12, 1898, when it officially became a territory of the United States. Hawaii was admitted as a U.S. state on August 21, 1959.
First human settlement – Ancient Hawaii (1000–1778)
Based on archaeological evidence, the earliest habitation of the Hawaiian Islands dates to around 1000–1200 CE, probably by Polynesian settlers from the
Marquesas Islands
The Marquesas Islands (; french: Îles Marquises or ' or '; Marquesan: ' ( North Marquesan) and ' ( South Marquesan), both meaning "the land of men") are a group of volcanic islands in French Polynesia, an overseas collectivity of France in th ...
. A second wave of migration from
Raiatea
Raiatea or Ra'iatea ( Tahitian: ''Ra‘iātea'') is the second largest of the Society Islands, after Tahiti, in French Polynesia. The island is widely regarded as the "centre" of the eastern islands in ancient Polynesia and it is likely that the ...
and
Bora Bora
Bora Bora ( French: ''Bora-Bora''; Tahitian: ''Pora Pora'') is an island group in the Leeward Islands. The Leeward Islands comprise the western part of the Society Islands of French Polynesia, which is an overseas collectivity of the Frenc ...
took place in the century. The date of the human discovery and habitation of the Hawaiian Islands is the subject of academic debate. Some archaeologists and historians think it was a later wave of immigrants from
Tahiti
Tahiti (; Tahitian ; ; previously also known as Otaheite) is the largest island of the Windward group of the Society Islands in French Polynesia. It is located in the central part of the Pacific Ocean and the nearest major landmass is Austr ...
around 1000 CE who introduced a new line of high chiefs, the
kapu Kapu may refer to:
* Kapu (Hawaiian culture), a Hawaiian code of conduct
* Kapu (caste), a social group of India
* Kapu, Karnataka, a town in Karnataka, India
** Kapu Assembly constituency
* Kapu, Arunachal Pradesh, a settlement in Tirap district, A ...
system, the practice of human sacrifice, and the building of ''
heiau
A ''heiau'' () is a Hawaiian temple. Made in different architectural styles depending upon their purpose and location, they range from simple earth terraces, to elaborately constructed stone platforms. There are heiau to treat the sick (''heia ...
''. This later immigration is detailed in
Hawaiian mythology
Hawaiian religion refers to the indigenous religious beliefs and practices of native Hawaiians, also known as the kapu system. Hawaiian religion is based largely on the tapu religion common in Polynesia and likely originated among the Tahitians ...
(''moolelo'') about Paao. Other authors say there is no archaeological or linguistic evidence for a later influx of Tahitian settlers and that Paao must be regarded as a myth.
The history of the islands is marked by a slow, steady growth in population and the size of the
chiefdoms
A chiefdom is a form of hierarchical political organization in non-industrial societies usually based on kinship, and in which formal leadership is monopolized by the legitimate senior members of select families or 'houses'. These elites form a ...
, which grew to encompass whole islands. Local chiefs, called alii, ruled their settlements, and launched wars to extend their influence and defend their communities from predatory rivals. Ancient Hawaii was a
caste
Caste is a form of social stratification characterised by endogamy, hereditary transmission of a style of life which often includes an occupation, ritual status in a hierarchy, and customary social interaction and exclusion based on cultura ...
-based society, much like that of Hindus in India. Population growth was facilitated by ecological and agricultural practices that combined upland agriculture (''manuka''), ocean fishing (''makai''),
fishponds
Fishponds is a large suburb in the north-east of the English city of Bristol, about from the city centre. It has two large Victorian-era parks: Eastville Park and Vassall's Park (once the Vassall Family estate, also known as Oldbury Court). T ...
and gardening systems. These systems were upheld by spiritual and religious beliefs, like the ''lokahi'', that linked cultural continuity with the health of the natural world. According to Hawaiian scholar
Mililani Trask
Mililani Trask is a leader of the Hawaiian sovereignty movement and a politics, political Public speaking, speaker and Lawyer, attorney. One of Trask's contributions to the Hawaiian sovereignty movement was her founding of Na Koa Ikaika o Ka Lāh ...
, the ''lokahi'' symbolizes the "greatest of the traditions, values, and practices of our people ... There are three points in the triangle—the Creator, ''Akua''; the peoples of the earth, ''Kanaka Maoli''; and the land, the ''aina''. These three things all have a reciprocal relationship."
European arrival
The 1778 arrival of British explorer
Captain James Cook
James Cook (7 November 1728 Old Style date: 27 October – 14 February 1779) was a British explorer, navigator, cartographer, and captain in the British Royal Navy, famous for his three voyages between 1768 and 1779 in the Pacific Ocean and ...
marked the first documented contact by a European explorer with Hawaii; early British influence can be seen in the design of the
flag of Hawaii
The flag of Hawaii ( Hawaiian: '), in addition to the current state design, previously had been used by the kingdom, protectorate, republic, and territory of Hawaii. It is the only U.S. state flag to include a foreign country's national flag. ...
, which bears the
Union Jack
The Union Jack, or Union Flag, is the ''de facto'' national flag of the United Kingdom. Although no law has been passed making the Union Flag the official national flag of the United Kingdom, it has effectively become such through precedent. ...
in the top-left corner. Cook named the archipelago "the Sandwich Islands" in honor of his sponsor
John Montagu, 4th Earl of Sandwich
John Montagu, 4th Earl of Sandwich, PC, FRS (13 November 1718 – 30 April 1792) was a British statesman who succeeded his grandfather Edward Montagu, 3rd Earl of Sandwich as the Earl of Sandwich in 1729, at the age of ten. During his life ...
, publishing the islands' location and rendering the native name as ''Owyhee''. The form 'Owyhee' or 'Owhyhee' is preserved in the names of certain locations in the American part of the Pacific Northwest, among them
Owyhee County
Owyhee County ( ) is a county in the southwestern corner of the U.S. state of Idaho. As of the 2020 census, the population was 12,133. The county seat is Murphy, and its largest city is Homedale. In area it is the second-largest county in Idah ...
and
Owyhee Mountains
The Owyhee Mountains are a mountain range in Owyhee County, Idaho and Malheur County, Oregon.
Mahogany Mountain and the associated volcanic craters of the Lake Owyhee volcanic field are in the Owyhee Mountains of Oregon just east of the Owyhee R ...
in
Idaho
Idaho ( ) is a state in the Pacific Northwest region of the Western United States. To the north, it shares a small portion of the Canada–United States border with the province of British Columbia. It borders the states of Montana and Wyom ...
, named after three native Hawaiian members of a trapping party who went missing in the area.
It is possible that
Spanish explorers
Exploration refers to the historical practice of discovering remote lands. It is studied by geographers and historians.
Two major eras of exploration occurred in human history: one of convergence, and one of divergence. The first, covering most ...
arrived in the Hawaiian Islands in the 16th century, two hundred years before Cook's first documented visit in 1778.
Ruy López de Villalobos
Ruy López de Villalobos (; ca. 1500 – April 4, 1546) was a Spanish explorer who sailed the Pacific from Mexico to establish a permanent foothold for Spain in the East Indies, which was near the Line of Demarcation between Spain and Portugal a ...
commanded a fleet of six ships that left
Acapulco
Acapulco de Juárez (), commonly called Acapulco ( , also , nah, Acapolco), is a city and major seaport in the state of Guerrero on the Pacific Coast of Mexico, south of Mexico City. Acapulco is located on a deep, semicircular bay and has bee ...
in 1542 bound for the Philippines, with a Spanish sailor named Juan Gaetano aboard as pilot. Depending on the interpretation, Gaetano's reports describe an encounter with either Hawaii or the
Marshall Islands
The Marshall Islands ( mh, Ṃajeḷ), officially the Republic of the Marshall Islands ( mh, Aolepān Aorōkin Ṃajeḷ),'' () is an independent island country and microstate near the Equator in the Pacific Ocean, slightly west of the Internati ...
. If López de Villalobos' crew spotted Hawaii, Gaetano would thus be considered the first European to see the islands. Most scholars have dismissed these claims due to a lack of credibility.
Nonetheless, Spanish archives contain a chart that depicts islands at the same latitude as Hawaii, but with a longitude ten degrees east of the islands. In this manuscript, the island of Maui is named ''La Desgraciada'' (The Unfortunate Island), and what appears to be Hawaii Island is named ''La Mesa'' (The Table). Islands resembling Kahoolawe', Lānai, and
Molokai
Molokai , or Molokai (), is the fifth most populated of the eight major islands that make up the Hawaiian Islands, Hawaiian Islands archipelago in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. It is 38 by 10 miles (61 by 16 km) at its greatest length an ...
are named ''Los Monjes'' (The Monks). For two-and-a-half centuries, Spanish galleons crossed the Pacific from Mexico along a route that passed south of Hawaii on their way to
Manila
Manila ( , ; fil, Maynila, ), officially the City of Manila ( fil, Lungsod ng Maynila, ), is the capital of the Philippines, and its second-most populous city. It is highly urbanized and, as of 2019, was the world's most densely populate ...
. The exact route was kept secret to protect the Spanish trade monopoly against competing powers. Hawaii thus maintained independence, despite being situated on a sea route east–west between nations that were subjects of the
Viceroyalty of New Spain
New Spain, officially the Viceroyalty of New Spain ( es, Virreinato de Nueva España, ), or Kingdom of New Spain, was an integral territorial entity of the Spanish Empire, established by Habsburg Spain during the Spanish colonization of the Amer ...
, an empire that exercised jurisdiction over many subject civilizations and kingdoms on both sides of the Pacific.
Despite such contested claims, Cook is generally credited as being the first European to land at Hawaii, having visited the Hawaiian Islands twice. As he prepared for departure after his second visit in 1779, a quarrel ensued as Cook took temple idols and fencing as "firewood", and a minor chief and his men stole a boat from his ship. Cook abducted the King of Hawaii Island, Kalaniōpuu, and held him for ransom aboard his ship to gain return of Cook's boat, as this tactic had previously worked in Tahiti and other islands. Instead, the supporters of Kalaniōpuu attacked, killing Cook and four sailors as Cook's party retreated along the beach to their ship. The ship departed without retrieving the stolen boat.
After Cook's visit and the publication of several books relating his voyages, the Hawaiian Islands attracted many European and American visitors: explorers, traders, and eventually whalers, who found the islands to be a convenient harbor and source of supplies. These visitors introduced diseases to the once-isolated islands, causing the Hawaiian population to drop precipitously. Native Hawaiians had no resistance to Eurasian diseases, such as
influenza
Influenza, commonly known as "the flu", is an infectious disease caused by influenza viruses. Symptoms range from mild to severe and often include fever, runny nose, sore throat, muscle pain, headache, coughing, and fatigue. These symptoms ...
,
smallpox
Smallpox was an infectious disease caused by variola virus (often called smallpox virus) which belongs to the genus Orthopoxvirus. The last naturally occurring case was diagnosed in October 1977, and the World Health Organization (WHO) c ...
and
measles
Measles is a highly contagious infectious disease caused by measles virus. Symptoms usually develop 10–12 days after exposure to an infected person and last 7–10 days. Initial symptoms typically include fever, often greater than , cough, ...
. By 1820, disease, famine and wars between the chiefs killed more than half of the Native Hawaiian population. During the 1850s, measles killed a fifth of Hawaii's people.
Historical records indicated the earliest Chinese immigrants to Hawaii originated from
Guangdong Province
Guangdong (, ), alternatively romanized as Canton or Kwangtung, is a coastal province in South China on the north shore of the South China Sea. The capital of the province is Guangzhou. With a population of 126.01 million (as of 2020) ...
; a few sailors had arrived in 1778 with Captain Cook's journey, and more arrived in 1789 with an American trader who settled in Hawaii in the late 18th century. It is said that leprosy was introduced by Chinese workers by 1830, and as with the other new infectious diseases, it proved damaging to the Hawaiians.
Kingdom of Hawaii
House of Kamehameha
During the 1780s, and 1790s, chiefs often fought for power. After a series of battles that ended in 1795, all inhabited islands were subjugated under a single ruler, who became known as
King Kamehameha the Great
Kamehameha I (; Kalani Paiea Wohi o Kaleikini Kealiikui Kamehameha o Iolani i Kaiwikapu kaui Ka Liholiho Kūnuiākea; – May 8 or 14, 1819), also known as Kamehameha the Great, was the conqueror and first ruler of the Kingdom of Hawaii. Th ...
. He established the
House of Kamehameha
The House of Kamehameha ''(Hale O Kamehameha)'', or the Kamehameha dynasty, was the reigning Royal Family of the Kingdom of Hawaii, beginning with its founding by Kamehameha I in 1795 and ending with the death of Kamehameha V in 1872 and Lunalilo ...
, a dynasty that ruled the kingdom until 1872.
After
Kamehameha II
Kamehameha II (November 1797 – July 14, 1824) was the second king of the Kingdom of Hawaii. His birth name was Liholiho and full name was Kalaninui kua Liholiho i ke kapu ʻIolani. It was lengthened to Kalani Kaleiʻaimoku o Kaiwikapu o Laʻ ...
inherited the throne in 1819, American Protestant missionaries to Hawaii converted many Hawaiians to Christianity. Scholars have argued that one function of missionary work was to "civilize" and "purify" perceived heathenism in the New World. This carried into Hawaii. According to research by historical archaeologist James L. Flexner, "missionaries provided the moral means to rationalize conquest and wholesale conversion to Christianity". However, rather than abandoning traditional beliefs entirely, most native Hawaiians merged their
Indigenous religion
Indigenous religions is a category used in the study of religion to demarcate the religious belief systems of communities described as being "indigenous". This category is often juxtaposed against others such as the "world religions" and "new re ...
with Christianity. Missionaries used their influence to end many traditional practices of the people, including the ''
kapu Kapu may refer to:
* Kapu (Hawaiian culture), a Hawaiian code of conduct
* Kapu (caste), a social group of India
* Kapu, Karnataka, a town in Karnataka, India
** Kapu Assembly constituency
* Kapu, Arunachal Pradesh, a settlement in Tirap district, A ...
'' system, the prevailing legal system before European contact, and ''heiau'', or 'temples' to religious figures. ''Kapu'', which typically translates to "the sacred", refers to social regulations (like gender and class restrictions) that were based upon spiritual beliefs. Under the guidance of missionaries, laws against gambling, consuming alcohol, dancing the ''
hula
Hula () is a Hawaiian dance form accompanied by chant (oli) or song (Mele (Hawaiian language), mele). It was developed in the Hawaiian Islands by the Native Hawaiians who originally settled there. The hula dramatizes or portrays the words of t ...
'', breaking the Sabbath, and polygamy were enacted. Without the ''kapu'' system, many temples and priestly statuses were jeopardized, idols were burned, and participation in Christianity increased. When King
Kamehameha III
Kamehameha III (born Kauikeaouli) (March 17, 1814 – December 15, 1854) was the third king of the Kingdom of Hawaii from 1825 to 1854. His full Hawaiian name is Keaweaweula Kīwalaō Kauikeaouli Kaleiopapa and then lengthened to Keaweaweula K ...
inherited the throne at twelve years old, he was pressured by his advisors to merge Christianity with traditional Hawaiian ways. Under the guidance of his ''kuhina nui'' (his mother and coregent Elizabeth Kaahumanu) and British allies, Hawaiʻi turned into a Christian monarchy with the signing of the 1840 Constitution.
Hiram Bingham I
Hiram Bingham, formally Hiram Bingham I (October 30, 1789 – November 11, 1869), was leader of the first group of American Protestant missionary, missionaries to introduce Christianity to the Hawaiian islands. Like most of the missionaries, he w ...
, a prominent Protestant missionary, was a trusted adviser to the monarchy during this period. Other missionaries and their descendants became active in commercial and political affairs, leading to conflicts between the monarchy and its restive American subjects. Catholic and Mormon missionaries were also active in the kingdom, but they converted a minority of the Native Hawaiian population. Missionaries from each major group administered to the leper colony at Kalaupapa on Molokai, which was established in 1866 and operated well into the 20th century. The best known were
Father Damien
Father Damien or Saint Damien of Molokai, SS.CC. or Saint Damien De Veuster ( nl, Pater Damiaan or '; 3 January 1840 – 15 April 1889), born Jozef De Veuster, was a Roman Catholic priest from Belgium and member of the Congregation of the Sacr ...
and
Mother Marianne Cope
Marianne Cope, also known as Saint Marianne of Molokai, (January 23, 1838 – August 9, 1918) was a German-born American religious sister who was a member of the Sisters of St Francis of Syracuse, New York, and founding leader of its St. Jose ...
, both of whom were canonized in the early 21st century as Roman
Catholic saints
This is an incomplete list of people and angels whom the Catholic Church has Canonization, canonized as saints. According to Catholic theology, all saints enjoy the beatific vision. Many of the Calendar of saints, saints listed here are to be f ...
.
The death of the bachelor
King Kamehameha V
Kamehameha V (Lota Kapuāiwa Kalanimakua Aliʻiōlani Kalanikupuapaʻīkalaninui; December 11, 1830 – December 11, 1872), reigned as the fifth monarch of the Kingdom of Hawaiʻi from 1863 to 1872. His motto was "Onipaʻa": immovable, firm, s ...
—who did not name an heir—resulted in the popular election of
Lunalilo
Lunalilo (William Charles Lunalilo; January 31, 1835 – February 3, 1874) was the sixth monarch of the Kingdom of Hawaii from his election on January 8, 1873, until his death a year later.
Born to Kekāuluohi and High Chief Charles Kanaʻina, ...
over
Kalākaua
Kalākaua (David Laʻamea Kamananakapu Mahinulani Naloiaehuokalani Lumialani Kalākaua; November 16, 1836 – January 20, 1891), sometimes called The Merrie Monarch, was the last king and penultimate monarch of the Hawaiian Kingdom, Kin ...
. Lunalilo died the next year, also without naming an heir. In 1874, the election was contested within the legislature between Kalākaua and Emma, Queen Consort of Kamehameha IV. After riots broke out, the United States and Britain landed troops on the islands to restore order.
King Kalākaua
King is the title given to a male monarch in a variety of contexts. The female equivalent is queen, which title is also given to the consort of a king.
*In the context of prehistory, antiquity and contemporary indigenous peoples, the tit ...
was chosen as monarch by the Legislative Assembly by a vote of 39 to6 on February 12, 1874.
1887 Constitution and overthrow preparations
In 1887, Kalākaua was forced to sign the
1887 Constitution of the Kingdom of Hawaii
The 1887 Constitution of the Hawaiian Kingdom was a legal document prepared by anti-monarchists to strip the Hawaiian monarchy of much of its authority, initiating a transfer of power to American, European and native Hawaiian elites. It became ...
. Drafted by white businessmen and lawyers, the document stripped the king of much of his authority. It established a property qualification for voting that effectively disenfranchised most Hawaiians and immigrant laborers and favored the wealthier, white elite. Resident whites were allowed to vote but resident Asians were not. As the 1887 Constitution was signed under threat of violence, it is known as the Bayonet Constitution. King Kalākaua, reduced to a figurehead, reigned until his death in 1891. His sister, Queen Liliuokalani, succeeded him; she was the last monarch of Hawaii.
In 1893, Queen Liliuokalani announced plans for a new constitution to proclaim herself an absolute monarch. On January 14, 1893, a group of mostly Euro-American business leaders and residents formed the Committee of Safety to stage a
coup d'état
A coup d'état (; French for 'stroke of state'), also known as a coup or overthrow, is a seizure and removal of a government and its powers. Typically, it is an illegal seizure of power by a political faction, politician, cult, rebel group, m ...
against the kingdom and seek annexation by the United States. United States Government Minister
John L. Stevens
John Leavitt Stevens (August 1, 1820 – February 8, 1895) was the United States Minister to the Hawaiian Kingdom in 1893 when he was accused of conspiring to overthrow Queen Liliuokalani in association with the Committee of Safety, led by ...
, responding to a request from the Committee of Safety, summoned a company of U.S. Marines. The Queen's soldiers did not resist. According to historian William Russ, the monarchy was unable to protect itself. In ''Hawaiian Autonomy'', Queen Liliuokalani states:
If we did not by force resist their final outrage, it was because we could not do so without striking at the military force of the United States. Whatever constraint the executive of this great country may be under to recognize the present government at Honolulu has been forced upon it by no act of ours, but by the unlawful acts of its own agents. Attempts to repudiate those acts are vain.
In a message to Sanford B. Dole, Queen Liliuokalani states:
Now to avoid any collision of armed forces and perhaps the loss of life, I do under this protest, and impelled by said force, yield my authority until such time as the Government of the United States shall, upon the facts being presented to it, undo the action of its representatives and reinstate me in the authority which I claim as the constitutional sovereign of the Hawaiian Islands.
Overthrow of 1893 – Republic of Hawaii (1894–1898)
The treason trials of 1892 brought together the main players in the 1893 overthrow. American Minister John L. Stevens voiced support for Native Hawaiian revolutionaries, William R. Castle, a Committee of Safety member, served as a defense counsel in the treason trials, Alfred Stedman Hartwell, the 1893 annexation commissioner, led the defense effort, and Sanford B. Dole ruled as a supreme court justice against acts of conspiracy and treason.
On January 17, 1893, a small group of sugar and pineapple-growing businessmen, aided by the American minister to Hawaii and backed by heavily armed U.S. soldiers and marines, deposed Queen Liliuokalani and was replaced by a provisional government composed of members of the Committee of Safety. According to scholar Lydia Kualapai and Hawaii State Representative Roy Takumi, this was a committee formed against the will of Indigenous Hawaiian voters, who constituted the majority of voters at the time, and consisted of "thirteen white men" according to scholar J Kehaulani Kauanui. The United States Minister to the
Kingdom of Hawaii
The Hawaiian Kingdom, or Kingdom of Hawaiʻi ( Hawaiian: ''Ko Hawaiʻi Pae ʻĀina''), was a sovereign state located in the Hawaiian Islands. The country was formed in 1795, when the warrior chief Kamehameha the Great, of the independent island ...
(
John L. Stevens
John Leavitt Stevens (August 1, 1820 – February 8, 1895) was the United States Minister to the Hawaiian Kingdom in 1893 when he was accused of conspiring to overthrow Queen Liliuokalani in association with the Committee of Safety, led by ...
) conspired with U.S. citizens to overthrow the monarchy. After the overthrow, Lawyer
Sanford B. Dole
Sanford Ballard Dole (April 23, 1844 – June 9, 1926) was a lawyer and jurist from the Hawaiian Islands. He lived through the periods when Hawaii was a Kingdom of Hawaii, kingdom, Provisional Government of Hawaii, protectorate, Republic of Hawa ...
, a citizen of Hawaii and cousin to James Dole, owner of Hawaiian Fruit Company, a company that benefited from the annexation of Hawaii, became President of the Republic when the
Provisional Government of Hawaii
The Provisional Government of Hawaii (abbr.: P.G.; Hawaiian: ''Aupuni Kūikawā o Hawaiʻi'') was proclaimed after the overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom on January 17, 1893, by the 13-member Committee of Safety under the leadership of its ch ...
ended on July 4, 1894.
Controversy ensued in the following years as the Queen tried to regain her throne. Scholar Lydia Kualapai writes that Queen Liliuokalani had "yielded under protest not to the counterfeit Provisional Government of Hawaii but to the superior force of the United States of America" and wrote letters of protest to the President requesting a recognizance of allyship and a reinstatement of her sovereignty against the recent actions of the Provisional Government of Hawaii. Following the January 1893 coup that deposed Queen Liliuokalani, a significant number of royalists were preparing to overthrow the white-led Republic of Hawaii oligarchy. Hundreds of rifles were covertly shipped to Hawaii and hidden in caves nearby. As armed men were coming and going, the rebel group was discovered by a Republic of Hawaii patrol. On January 6, 1895, gunfire began on both sides and later the rebels were surrounded and captured. Throughout the following 10 days several skirmishes occurred, until the last armed opposition surrendered or were captured. The Republic of Hawaii took 123 men into custody as Prisoners of War. The mass arrest of nearly 300 more men and women as political prisoners including Queen Liliuokalani was intended to incapacitate the political resistance against the ruling oligarchy. In March 1895, a military tribunal convicted 170 prisoners with treason and 6 men to be "hung by the neck" until dead, according to historian Ronald Williams Jr. The other prisoners were sentenced from 5–35 years imprisonment at hard labor, while those convicted of lesser charges received sentences from 6 months to 6 years imprisonment at hard labor. The queen was sentenced to 5 years in prison, but she spent 8 months under house arrest until she was released on parole. The total number of arrests related to the 1895 Kaua Kūloko was 406 people on a summary list of statistics, published by the government of the Republic of Hawaii.
The administration of President
Grover Cleveland
Stephen Grover Cleveland (March 18, 1837June 24, 1908) was an American lawyer and politician who served as the 22nd and 24th president of the United States from 1885 to 1889 and from 1893 to 1897. Cleveland is the only president in American ...
commissioned the
Blount Report
The Blount Report is the popular name given to the part of the 1893 United States House of Representatives Foreign Relations Committee Report regarding the overthrow of the Kingdom of Hawaii. The report was conducted by U.S. Commissioner James ...
, which concluded that the removal of Liliuokalani had been illegal. Commissioner Blount found the United States and its Minister guilty on all counts including the overthrow, the landing of the marines, and the recognition of the provisional government. In a message to Congress, President Grover Cleveland wrote:
And finally, but for the lawless occupation of Honolulu under false pretexts by the United States forces, and but for Minister Stevens' recognition of the provisional government when the United States forces were its sole support and constituted its only military strength, the Queen and her Government would never have yielded to the provisional government, even for a time and for the sole purpose of submitting her case to the enlightened justice of the United States." "By an act of war, committed with the participation of a diplomatic representative of the United States and without authority of Congress, the Government of a feeble but friendly and confiding people has been overthrown. A substantial wrong has thus been done which a due regard for our national character as well as the rights of the injured people requires we should endeavor to repair. The provisional government has not assumed a republican or other constitutional form, but has remained a mere executive council or oligarchy, set up without the assent of the people. It has not sought to find a permanent basis of popular support and has given no evidence of an intention to do so.
The U.S. government first demanded that Queen Liliuokalani be reinstated, but the Provisional Government refused. On December 23, 1893, the response from the Provisional Government of Hawaii, authored by President Sanford B. Dole, was received by President Grover Cleveland's representative – Minister Albert S. Willis – and emphasized that the Provisional Government of Hawaii "unhesitatingly" rejected the demand from the Cleveland Administration.
Congress conducted an independent investigation, and on February 26, 1894, submitted the
Morgan Report
The Morgan Report was an 1894 report concluding an official U.S. Congressional investigation into the events surrounding the overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom, including the alleged role of U.S. military troops (both bluejackets and marines) in the ...
, which found all parties, including Minister Stevens—with the exception of the Queen—"not guilty" and not responsible for the coup. Partisans on both sides of the debate questioned the accuracy and impartiality of both the Blount and Morgan reports over the events of 1893.
In 1993, the US Congress passed a joint
Apology Resolution
United States Public Law 103-150, informally known as the Apology Resolution, is a Joint Resolution of the U.S. Congress adopted in 1993 that "acknowledges that the overthrow of the Kingdom of Hawaii occurred with the active participation of age ...
regarding the overthrow; it was signed by President
Bill Clinton
William Jefferson Clinton ( né Blythe III; born August 19, 1946) is an American politician who served as the 42nd president of the United States from 1993 to 2001. He previously served as governor of Arkansas from 1979 to 1981 and agai ...
. The resolution apologized and said that the overthrow was illegal in the following phrase: "The Congress—on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the illegal overthrow of the Kingdom of Hawaii on January 17, 1893, acknowledges the historical significance of this event which resulted in the suppression of the inherent sovereignty of the Native Hawaiian people." The Apology Resolution also "acknowledges that the overthrow of the Kingdom of Hawaii occurred with the active participation of agents and citizens of the United States and further acknowledges that the Native Hawaiian people never directly relinquished to the United States their claims to their inherent sovereignty as a people over their national lands, either through the Kingdom of Hawaii or through a plebiscite or referendum".
Annexation – Territory of Hawaii (1898–1959)
After
William McKinley
William McKinley (January 29, 1843September 14, 1901) was the 25th president of the United States, serving from 1897 until his assassination in 1901. As a politician he led a realignment that made his Republican Party largely dominant in ...
won the 1896 U.S. presidential election, advocates pressed to annex the Republic of Hawaii. The previous president, Grover Cleveland, was a friend of Queen Liliuokalani. McKinley was open to persuasion by U.S. expansionists and by annexationists from Hawaii. He met with three non-native annexationists:
Lorrin A. Thurston
Lorrin Andrews Thurston (July 31, 1858 – May 11, 1931) was an American lawyer, politician, and businessman born and raised in the Kingdom of Hawaii. Thurston played a prominent role in the Overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom that replaced Q ...
, Francis March Hatch and
William Ansel Kinney
William Ansel Kinney (1860–1930) was a lawyer and politician in the Kingdom of Hawaii, through the Republic of Hawaii and into the Territory of Hawaii.
Family
William Ansel Kinney was born October 16, 1860, in Honolulu, Hawaii.
His father was ...
. After negotiations in June 1897, Secretary of State
John Sherman
John Sherman (May 10, 1823October 22, 1900) was an American politician from Ohio throughout the Civil War and into the late nineteenth century. A member of the Republican Party, he served in both houses of the U.S. Congress. He also served as ...
agreed to a treaty of annexation with these representatives of the Republic of Hawaii. The
U.S. Senate
The United States Senate is the upper chamber of the United States Congress, with the House of Representatives being the lower chamber. Together they compose the national bicameral legislature of the United States.
The composition and powe ...
never ratified the treaty. Despite the opposition of most native Hawaiians, the
Newlands Resolution
The Newlands Resolution was a joint resolution passed on July 7, 1898, by the United States Congress to annex the independent Republic of Hawaii. In 1900, Congress created the Territory of Hawaii.
The resolution was drafted by Representative Fra ...
was used to annex the Republic to the U.S.; it became the
Territory of Hawaii
The Territory of Hawaii or Hawaii Territory ( Hawaiian: ''Panalāʻau o Hawaiʻi'') was an organized incorporated territory of the United States that existed from April 30, 1900, until August 21, 1959, when most of its territory, excluding ...
. The Newlands Resolution was passed by the House on June 15, 1898, by 209 votes in favor to 91 against, and by the Senate on July 6, 1898, by a vote of 42 to 21.
A majority of Native Hawaiians opposed annexation, voiced chiefly by Queen Liliuokalani, who Hawaiian
Haunani-Kay Trask
Haunani-Kay Trask (October 3, 1949 – July 3, 2021) was a Native Hawaiian activist, educator, author, and poet. She served as leader of the Hawaiian sovereignty movement and was professor emeritus at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa. She w ...
described as beloved and respected by her people. Liliuokalani wrote that "it had not entered into our hearts to believe that these friends and allies from the United States ... would ever go so far as to absolutely overthrow our form of government, seize our nation by the throat, and pass it over to an alien power" in her retelling of the overthrow of her government. According to Trask, newspapers at the time argued Hawaiians would suffer "virtual enslavement under annexation", including further loss of lands and liberties, in particular to sugar plantation owners. These plantations were protected by the U.S. Navy as economic interests, justifying a continued military presence in the islands.
In 1900, Hawaii was granted self-governance and retained
Iolani Palace Iolani is a masculine Hawaiian name meaning "royal ''hawk''." It comes from the Hawaiian words ''ʻio'', meaning "Hawaiian hawk," and ''lani'', meaning "royal."
It may refer to:
*ʻIolani School, a private school located in Hawaii
*ʻIolani Palac ...
as the territorial capitol building. Despite several attempts to become a state, Hawaii remained a territory for 60 years. Plantation owners and capitalists, who maintained control through financial institutions such as the Big Five, found territorial status convenient because they remained able to import cheap, foreign labor. Such immigration and labor practices were prohibited in many states.
Puerto Rican immigration to Hawaii
Puerto Rican migration to Hawaii began when Puerto Rico's sugar industry was devastated by two hurricanes in 1899. The devastation caused a worldwide shortage in sugar and a huge demand for the product from Hawaii. Consequently, Hawaiian sugarcane ...
began in 1899, when Puerto Rico's sugar industry was devastated by a hurricane, causing a worldwide shortage of sugar and a huge demand for sugar from Hawaii. Hawaiian
sugarcane
Sugarcane or sugar cane is a species of (often hybrid) tall, Perennial plant, perennial grass (in the genus ''Saccharum'', tribe Andropogoneae) that is used for sugar Sugar industry, production. The plants are 2–6 m (6–20 ft) tall with ...
plantation
A plantation is an agricultural estate, generally centered on a plantation house, meant for farming that specializes in cash crops, usually mainly planted with a single crop, with perhaps ancillary areas for vegetables for eating and so on. The ...
owners began to recruit experienced, unemployed laborers in Puerto Rico. Two waves of
Korean immigration to Hawaii
Korean immigration to Hawaii has been constant since the early 20th century. There have been two distinct points at which immigration has peaked: the first wave from 1903 to 1949, the second wave from 1950 to 1964. On January 13, 2003, George W. ...
occurred in the 20th century. The first wave arrived between 1903 and 1924; the second wave began in 1965 after President
Lyndon B. Johnson
Lyndon Baines Johnson (; August 27, 1908January 22, 1973), often referred to by his initials LBJ, was an American politician who served as the 36th president of the United States from 1963 to 1969. He had previously served as the 37th vice ...
signed the
Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965
The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, also known as the Hart–Celler Act and more recently as the 1965 Immigration Act, is a federal law passed by the 89th United States Congress and signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson. The l ...
, which removed racial and national barriers and resulted in significantly altering the demographic mix in the U.S.
Oahu was the target of a surprise
attack on Pearl Harbor
The attack on Pearl HarborAlso known as the Battle of Pearl Harbor was a surprise military strike by the Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service upon the United States against the naval base at Pearl Harbor in Honolulu, Territory of Hawaii, j ...
by
Imperial Japan
The also known as the Japanese Empire or Imperial Japan, was a historical nation-state and great power that existed from the Meiji Restoration in 1868 until the enactment of the post-World War II 1947 constitution and subsequent forma ...
on December 7, 1941. The attack on Pearl Harbor and other military and naval installations, carried out by
aircraft
An aircraft is a vehicle that is able to fly by gaining support from the air. It counters the force of gravity by using either static lift or by using the dynamic lift of an airfoil, or in a few cases the downward thrust from jet engines ...
and by
midget submarine
A midget submarine (also called a mini submarine) is any submarine under 150 tons, typically operated by a crew of one or two but sometimes up to six or nine, with little or no on-board living accommodation. They normally work with mother ships, ...
s, brought the United States into
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
.
Political changes of 1954 – State of Hawaii (1959–present)
In the 1950s, the power of the plantation owners was broken by the descendants of immigrant laborers, who were born in Hawaii and were U.S. citizens. They voted against the
Hawaii Republican Party
The Hawaii Republican Party ( haw, ʻAoʻao Lepupalika o Hawaiʻi) is the affiliate of the Republican Party (GOP) in Hawaii, headquartered in Honolulu. The party was initially strong during Hawaii's territorial days, but following statehood the ...
, strongly supported by plantation owners. The new majority voted for the
Democratic Party of Hawaii
The Democratic Party of Hawaii ( haw, ʻAoʻao Demokalaka o Hawaiʻi) is the affiliate of the Democratic Party in the state of Hawaii.
The party is a centralized organization established to promote the party platform as drafted in convention b ...
, which dominated territorial and state politics for more than 40 years. Eager to gain full representation in Congress and the Electoral College, residents actively campaigned for statehood. In Washington there was talk that Hawaii would be a Republican Party stronghold so it was matched with the admission of Alaska, seen as a Democratic Party stronghold. These predictions turned out to be inaccurate; today, Hawaii votes Democratic predominantly, while Alaska votes Republican.
In March 1959, Congress passed the Hawaii Admissions Act, which U.S. President
Dwight D. Eisenhower
Dwight David "Ike" Eisenhower (born David Dwight Eisenhower; ; October 14, 1890 – March 28, 1969) was an American military officer and statesman who served as the 34th president of the United States from 1953 to 1961. During World War II, ...
signed into law. The act excluded
Palmyra Atoll
Palmyra Atoll (), also referred to as Palmyra Island, is one of the Line Islands, Northern Line Islands (southeast of Kingman Reef and north of Kiribati). It is located almost due south of the Hawaiian Islands, roughly one-third of the way bet ...
from statehood; it had been part of the Kingdom and Territory of Hawaii. On June 27, 1959, a referendum asked residents of Hawaii to vote on the statehood bill; 94.3% voted in favor of statehood and 5.7% opposed it. The referendum asked voters to choose between accepting the Act and remaining a U.S. territory. The United Nations'
Special Committee on Decolonization
The United Nations Special Committee on the Situation with Regard to the Implementation of the Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples, or the Special Committee on Decolonization (C-24), is a committee of ...
Office of Hawaiian Affairs
The Office of Hawaiian Affairs (OHA) is a self-governing corporate body of the State of Hawaii created by the 1978 Hawaii State Constitutional Convention.
Background
In 1893, pro-American elements in Hawaii overthrew the monarchy and formed the ...
to promote indigenous language and culture.
Legacy of annexation on Hawaiian land
In 1897, over 21,000 Natives, representing the overwhelming majority of adult Hawaiians, signed anti-annexation petitions in one of the first examples of protest against the overthrow of Queen Liliuokalanis government. Nearly 100 years later, in 1993, 17,000 Hawaiians marched to demand access and control over Hawaiian trust lands and as part of the modern Hawaiian sovereignty movement. Hawaiian trust land ownership and use is still widely contested as a consequence of annexation. According to scholar Winona LaDuke, as of 2015, 95% of Hawaiis land was owned or controlled by just 82 landholders, including over 50% by federal and state governments, as well as the established sugar and pineapple companies.The Thirty Meter Telescope is planned to be built on Hawaiian trust land, but has faced resistance as the project interferes with Kanaka indigeneity.
Demographics
Population
After Europeans and mainland Americans first arrived during the
Kingdom of Hawaii
The Hawaiian Kingdom, or Kingdom of Hawaiʻi ( Hawaiian: ''Ko Hawaiʻi Pae ʻĀina''), was a sovereign state located in the Hawaiian Islands. The country was formed in 1795, when the warrior chief Kamehameha the Great, of the independent island ...
period, the overall population of Hawaii—which until that time composed solely of Indigenous Hawaiians—fell dramatically. Many people of the Indigenous Hawaiian population died to foreign diseases, declining from 300,000 in the 1770s, to 60,000 in the 1850s, to 24,000 in 1920. Other estimates for the pre-contact population range from 150,000 to 1.5 million. In 1923, 42% of the population was of Japanese descent, 9% was of Chinese descent, and 16% was native descent. The population of Hawaii began to finally increase after an influx of primarily Asian settlers that arrived as migrant laborers at the end of the 19thcentury.
The unmixed indigenous Hawaiian population has still not restored itself to its 300,000 pre-contact level. , only 156,000 persons declared themselves to be of Native Hawaiian-only ancestry, just over half the pre-contact level Native Hawaiian population, although an additional 371,000 persons declared themselves to possess Native Hawaiian ancestry in combination with one or more other races (including other Polynesian groups, but mostly Asian and/or Caucasian).
, the
United States Census Bureau
The United States Census Bureau (USCB), officially the Bureau of the Census, is a principal agency of the U.S. Federal Statistical System, responsible for producing data about the American people and economy. The Census Bureau is part of the ...
estimates the population of Hawaii at 1,420,491, a decrease of 7,047 from the previous year and an increase of 60,190 (4.42%) since 2010. This includes a natural increase of 48,111 (96,028 births minus 47,917 deaths) and an increase due to net migration of 16,956 people into the state. Immigration from outside the United States resulted in a net increase of 30,068; migration within the country produced a net loss of 13,112 people.
The center of population of Hawaii is located on the island of
O'ahu
Oahu () ( Hawaiian: ''Oʻahu'' ()), also known as "The Gathering Place", is the third-largest of the Hawaiian Islands. It is home to roughly one million people—over two-thirds of the population of the U.S. state of Hawaii. The island of O’ ...
. Large numbers of Native Hawaiians have moved to
Las Vegas
Las Vegas (; Spanish for "The Meadows"), often known simply as Vegas, is the 25th-most populous city in the United States, the most populous city in the state of Nevada, and the county seat of Clark County. The city anchors the Las Vegas ...
, which has been called the "ninth island" of Hawaii.
Hawaii has a ''de facto'' population of over 1.4million, due in part to a large number of military personnel and tourist residents.
O'ahu
Oahu () ( Hawaiian: ''Oʻahu'' ()), also known as "The Gathering Place", is the third-largest of the Hawaiian Islands. It is home to roughly one million people—over two-thirds of the population of the U.S. state of Hawaii. The island of O’ ...
is the most populous island; it has the highest population density with a resident population of just under one million in , approximately 1,650 people per square mile. Hawaii's 1.4million residents, spread across of land, result in an average population density of 188.6 persons per square mile. The state has a lower population density than
Ohio
Ohio () is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. Of the fifty U.S. states, it is the 34th-largest by area, and with a population of nearly 11.8 million, is the seventh-most populous and tenth-most densely populated. The sta ...
and
Illinois
Illinois ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern United States. Its largest metropolitan areas include the Chicago metropolitan area, and the Metro East section, of Greater St. Louis. Other smaller metropolita ...
.
The average projected lifespan of people born in Hawaii in 2000 is 79.8 years; 77.1 years if male, 82.5 if female—longer than the average lifespan of any other U.S. state. the U.S. military reported it had 42,371 personnel on the islands.
Ancestry
According to the 2020 United States Census, Hawaii had a population of 1,455,271. The state's population identified as 37.2%
Asian
Asian may refer to:
* Items from or related to the continent of Asia:
** Asian people, people in or descending from Asia
** Asian culture, the culture of the people from Asia
** Asian cuisine, food based on the style of food of the people from Asi ...
; 25.3%
Multiracial
Mixed race people are people of more than one race or ethnicity. A variety of terms have been used both historically and presently for mixed race people in a variety of contexts, including ''multiethnic'', ''polyethnic'', occasionally ''bi-ethn ...
; 22.9%
White
White is the lightest color and is achromatic (having no hue). It is the color of objects such as snow, chalk, and milk, and is the opposite of black. White objects fully reflect and scatter all the visible wavelengths of light. White on ...
; 10.8%
Native Hawaiians
Native Hawaiians (also known as Indigenous Hawaiians, Kānaka Maoli, Aboriginal Hawaiians, First Hawaiians, or simply Hawaiians) ( haw, kānaka, , , and ), are the indigenous ethnic group of Polynesian people of the Hawaiian Islands.
Hawaii ...
and other Pacific Islanders; 9.5% Hispanic and Latinos of any race; 1.6% Black or African American; 1.8% from some other race; and 0.3% Native American and Alaskan Native.
Hawaii has the highest percentage of Asian Americans and multiracial Americans and the lowest percentage of White Americans of any state. It is the only state where people who identify as Asian Americans are the largest ethnic group. In 2012, 14.5% of the resident population under age 1 was non-Hispanic white. Hawaii's Asian population consists mainly of 198,000 (14.6%) Filipino Americans, 185,000 (13.6%) Japanese Americans, roughly 55,000 (4.0%) Chinese Americans, and 24,000 (1.8%)
Korean American
Korean Americans are Americans of Korean ancestry (mostly from South Korea). In 2015, the Korean-American community constituted about 0.56% of the United States population, or about 1.82 million people, and was the fifth-largest Asian Americans ...
s. There are more than 80,000 Indigenous Hawaiians—5.9% of the population. Including those with partial ancestry, Samoan Americans constitute 2.8% of Hawaii's population, and Tongan Americans constitute 0.6%.
Over 120,000 (8.8%) Hispanic and Latino Americans live in Hawaii. Mexican Americans number over 35,000 (2.6%); Puerto Ricans exceed 44,000 (3.2%). Multiracial Americans constitute almost 25% of Hawaii's population, exceeding 320,000 people. Hawaii is the only state to have a tri-racial group as its largest multiracial group, one that includes white, Asian and Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander (22% of all mutiracial population). The non-Hispanic White population numbers around 310,000—just over 20% of the population. The multi-racial population outnumbers the non-Hispanic white population by about 10,000 people. In 1970, the Census Bureau reported Hawaii's population was 38.8% white and 57.7% Asian and Pacific Islander.
The five largest European ancestries in Hawaii are German (7.4%), Irish (5.2%), English (4.6%), Portuguese (4.3%) and Italian (2.7%). About 82.2% of the state's residents were born in the United States. Roughly 75% of foreign-born residents originate in Asia. Hawaii is a
majority-minority state
A majority-minority or minority-majority area is a term used to refer to a subdivision in which one or more racial, ethnic, and/or religious minorities (relative to the whole country's population) make up a majority of the local population.
Term ...
. It was expected to be one of three states that would not have a non-Hispanic white plurality in 2014; the other two are California and
New Mexico
)
, population_demonym = New Mexican ( es, Neomexicano, Neomejicano, Nuevo Mexicano)
, seat = Santa Fe
, LargestCity = Albuquerque
, LargestMetro = Tiguex
, OfficialLang = None
, Languages = English, Spanish ( New Mexican), Navajo, Ker ...
.
The third group of foreigners to arrive in Hawaii were from China. Chinese workers on Western trading ships settled in Hawaii starting in 1789. In 1820, the first American missionaries arrived to preach Christianity and teach the Hawaiians Western ways. , a large proportion of Hawaii's population have Asian ancestry—especially Filipino, Japanese and Chinese. Many are descendants of immigrants brought to work on the sugarcane plantations in the mid-to-late 19th century. The first 153 Japanese immigrants arrived in Hawaii on June 19, 1868. They were not approved by the then-current Japanese government because the contract was between a broker and the
Tokugawa shogunate
The Tokugawa shogunate (, Japanese 徳川幕府 ''Tokugawa bakufu''), also known as the , was the military government of Japan during the Edo period from 1603 to 1868. Nussbaum, Louis-Frédéric. (2005)"''Tokugawa-jidai''"in ''Japan Encyclopedia ...
—by then replaced by the
Meiji Restoration
The , referred to at the time as the , and also known as the Meiji Renovation, Revolution, Regeneration, Reform, or Renewal, was a political event that restored practical imperial rule to Japan in 1868 under Emperor Meiji. Although there were ...
. The first Japanese current-government-approved immigrants arrived on February 9, 1885, after Kalākaua's petition to
Emperor Meiji
, also called or , was the 122nd emperor of Japan according to the traditional order of succession. Reigning from 13 February 1867 to his death, he was the first monarch of the Empire of Japan and presided over the Meiji era. He was the figur ...
when Kalākaua visited Japan in 1881.
Almost 13,000 Portuguese migrants had arrived by 1899; they also worked on the sugarcane plantations. See pp. 332–33. By 1901, more than 5,000 Puerto Ricans were living in Hawaii.
Languages
English and Hawaiian are listed as Hawaii's official languages in the state's 1978 constitution, in Article XV, Section 4. However, the use of Hawaiian is limited because the constitution specifies that "Hawaiian shall be required for public acts and transactions only as provided by law". Hawaiʻi Creole English, locally referred to as "Pidgin", is the native language of many native residents and is a second language for many others.
As of the 2000 Census, 73.4% of Hawaii residents age5 and older exclusively speak English at home. According to the 2008 American Community Survey, 74.6% of Hawaii's residents older than5 speak only English at home. In their homes, 21.0% of state residents speak an additional
Asian language
A wide variety of languages are spoken throughout Asia, comprising different language families and some unrelated isolates. The major language families include Austroasiatic, Austronesian, Caucasian, Dravidian, Indo-European, Afroasiatic, Turk ...
, 2.6% speak Spanish, 1.6% speak other
Indo-European language
The Indo-European languages are a language family native to the overwhelming majority of Europe, the Iranian plateau, and the northern Indian subcontinent. Some European languages of this family, English, French, Portuguese, Russian, Dutch ...
s and 0.2% speak another language.
After English, other languages popularly spoken in the state are Tagalog, Japanese and Ilocano. Significant numbers of European immigrants and their descendants also speak their native languages; the most numerous are German, Portuguese, Italian and French. 5.4% of residents speak Tagalog, which includes non-native speakers of
Filipino
Filipino may refer to:
* Something from or related to the Philippines
** Filipino language, standardized variety of 'Tagalog', the national language and one of the official languages of the Philippines.
** Filipinos, people who are citizens of th ...
, a Tagalog-based national and co-official language of the Philippines; 5.0% speak Japanese and 4.0% speak Ilocano; 1.2% speak Chinese, 1.7% speak Hawaiian; 1.7% speak Spanish; 1.6% speak
Korean
Korean may refer to:
People and culture
* Koreans, ethnic group originating in the Korean Peninsula
* Korean cuisine
* Korean culture
* Korean language
**Korean alphabet, known as Hangul or Chosŏn'gŭl
**Korean dialects and the Jeju language
** ...
The Hawaiian language has about 2,000 native speakers, about 0.15% of the total population. According to the United States Census, there were more than 24,000 total speakers of the language in Hawaii in 2006–2008. Hawaiian is a Polynesian member of the Austronesian language family. It is closely related to other
Polynesian languages
The Polynesian languages form a genealogical group of languages, itself part of the Oceanic branch of the Austronesian family.
There are 38 Polynesian languages, representing 7 percent of the 522 Oceanic languages, and 3 percent of the Austron ...
, such as
Marquesan
The Marquesas Islands (; french: Îles Marquises or ' or '; Marquesan: ' ( North Marquesan) and ' ( South Marquesan), both meaning "the land of men") are a group of volcanic islands in French Polynesia, an overseas collectivity of France in th ...
Māori
Māori or Maori can refer to:
Relating to the Māori people
* Māori people of New Zealand, or members of that group
* Māori language, the language of the Māori people of New Zealand
* Māori culture
* Cook Islanders, the Māori people of the C ...
,
Rapa Nui
Easter Island ( rap, Rapa Nui; es, Isla de Pascua) is an island and special territory of Chile in the southeastern Pacific Ocean, at the southeasternmost point of the Polynesian Triangle in Oceania. The island is most famous for its nearly ...
(the language of
Easter Island
Easter Island ( rap, Rapa Nui; es, Isla de Pascua) is an island and special territory of Chile in the southeastern Pacific Ocean, at the southeasternmost point of the Polynesian Triangle in Oceania. The island is most famous for its nearl ...
), and less closely to Samoan and Tongan.
According to Schütz, the Marquesans colonized the archipelago in roughly 300 CE and were later followed by waves of seafarers from the
Society Islands
The Society Islands (french: Îles de la Société, officially ''Archipel de la Société;'' ty, Tōtaiete mā) are an archipelago located in the South Pacific Ocean. Politically, they are part of French Polynesia, an overseas country of the F ...
,
Samoa
Samoa, officially the Independent State of Samoa; sm, Sāmoa, and until 1997 known as Western Samoa, is a Polynesian island country consisting of two main islands (Savai'i and Upolu); two smaller, inhabited islands (Manono Island, Manono an ...
and
Tonga
Tonga (, ; ), officially the Kingdom of Tonga ( to, Puleʻanga Fakatuʻi ʻo Tonga), is a Polynesian country and archipelago. The country has 171 islands – of which 45 are inhabited. Its total surface area is about , scattered over in ...
. These Polynesians remained in the islands; they eventually became the Hawaiian people and their languages evolved into the Hawaiian language. Kimura and Wilson say, " nguists agree that Hawaiian is closely related to Eastern Polynesian, with a particularly strong link in the Southern Marquesas, and a secondary link in Tahiti, which may be explained by voyaging between the Hawaiian and Society Islands".
Before the arrival of Captain James Cook, the Hawaiian language had no written form. That form was developed mainly by American Protestant missionaries between 1820 and 1826 who assigned to the Hawaiian phonemes letters from the Latin alphabet. Interest in Hawaiian increased significantly in the late 20th century. With the help of the Office of Hawaiian Affairs, specially designated immersion schools in which all subjects would be taught in Hawaiian were established. The
University of Hawaii
A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United States, th ...
developed a Hawaiian language graduate studies program. Municipal codes were altered to favor Hawaiian place and street names for new civic developments.
Hawaiian distinguishes between long and short vowel sounds. In modern practice, vowel length is indicated with a macron (''
kahakō
A macron () is a diacritical mark: it is a straight bar placed above a letter, usually a vowel. Its name derives from Ancient Greek (''makrón'') "long", since it was originally used to mark long or heavy syllables in Greco-Roman metrics. ...
''). Hawaiian-language newspapers (''nūpepa'') published from 1834 to 1948 and traditional native speakers of Hawaiian generally omit the marks in their own writing. The ʻokina and kahakō are intended to capture the proper pronunciation of Hawaiian words. The Hawaiian language uses the
glottal stop
The glottal plosive or stop is a type of consonantal sound used in many spoken languages, produced by obstructing airflow in the vocal tract or, more precisely, the glottis. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents thi ...
('' ʻOkina'') as a consonant. It is written as a symbol similar to the apostrophe or left-hanging (opening) single quotation mark.
The keyboard layout used for Hawaiian is
QWERTY
QWERTY () is a keyboard layout for Latin-script alphabets. The name comes from the order of the first six Computer keyboard keys#Types, keys on the top left letter row of the keyboard ( ). The QWERTY design is based on a layout created f ...
.
Hawaiian Pidgin
Some residents of Hawaii speak Hawaiʻi Creole English (HCE), endonymically called ''pidgin'' or ''pidgin English''. The lexicon of HCE derives mainly from English but also uses words that have derived from Hawaiian, Chinese, Japanese, Portuguese, Ilocano and Tagalog. During the 19th century, the increase in immigration—mainly from China, Japan, Portugal—especially from the
Azores
)
, motto =( en, "Rather die free than subjected in peace")
, anthem= ( en, "Anthem of the Azores")
, image_map=Locator_map_of_Azores_in_EU.svg
, map_alt=Location of the Azores within the European Union
, map_caption=Location of the Azores wi ...
and
Madeira
)
, anthem = ( en, "Anthem of the Autonomous Region of Madeira")
, song_type = Regional anthem
, image_map=EU-Portugal_with_Madeira_circled.svg
, map_alt=Location of Madeira
, map_caption=Location of Madeira
, subdivision_type=Sovereign st ...
, and Spain—catalyzed the development of a hybrid variant of English known to its speakers as ''pidgin''. By the early 20th century, pidgin speakers had children who acquired it as their first language. HCE speakers use some Hawaiian words without those words being considered archaic. Most place names are retained from Hawaiian, as are some names for plants and animals. For example, tuna fish is often called by its Hawaiian name, ''ahi''.
HCE speakers have modified the meanings of some English words. For example, "aunty" and "uncle" may either refer to any adult who is a friend or be used to show respect to an elder.
Syntax
In linguistics, syntax () is the study of how words and morphemes combine to form larger units such as phrases and sentences. Central concerns of syntax include word order, grammatical relations, hierarchical sentence structure ( constituency) ...
and
grammar
In linguistics, the grammar of a natural language is its set of structure, structural constraints on speakers' or writers' composition of clause (linguistics), clauses, phrases, and words. The term can also refer to the study of such constraint ...
follow distinctive rules different from those of General American English. For example, instead of "it is hot today, isn't it?", an HCE speaker would say simply "stay hot, eh?" The term ''
da kine
Da kine () is an expression in Hawaiian Pidgin (Hawaii Creole English), probably derived from "that kind", that usually functions grammatically as a placeholder name (compare to English "whatsit" and "whatchamacallit"). It can also take the role o ...
'' is used as a filler; a substitute for virtually any word or phrase. During the
surfing
Surfing is a surface water sport in which an individual, a surfer (or two in tandem surfing), uses a board to ride on the forward section, or face, of a moving wave of water, which usually carries the surfer towards the shore. Waves suitabl ...
boom in Hawaii, HCE was influenced by surfer slang. Some HCE expressions, such as ''brah'' and ''da kine'', have found their ways elsewhere through surfing communities.
Hawaiʻi Sign Language
Hawaiʻi Sign Language
Hawaiʻi Sign Language (HSL; Hawaiian language, Hawaiian: ''Hoailona ʻŌlelo o Hawaiʻi''), also known as Hoailona ʻŌlelo and Old Hawaiʻi Sign Language, is an indigenous sign language native to Hawaii, Hawaiʻi. Historical records document i ...
, a
sign language
Sign languages (also known as signed languages) are languages that use the visual-manual modality to convey meaning, instead of spoken words. Sign languages are expressed through manual articulation in combination with non-manual markers. Sign l ...
for the Deaf based on the Hawaiian language, has been in use in the islands since the early 1800s. It is dwindling in numbers due to
American Sign Language
American Sign Language (ASL) is a natural language that serves as the predominant sign language of Deaf communities in the United States of America and most of Anglophone Canadians, Anglophone Canada. ASL is a complete and organized visual lang ...
supplanting HSL through schooling and various other domains.
Religion
Hawaii is among the most religiously diverse states in the U.S., with one in ten residents practicing a non-Christian faith. Native Hawaiians continue to engage in traditional religious and spiritual practices today, often adhering to Christian and traditional beliefs at the same time. Christianity remains the majority religion, mainly represented by various
Protestants
Protestantism is a branch of Christianity that follows the theological tenets of the Protestant Reformation, a movement that began seeking to reform the Catholic Church from within in the 16th century against what its followers perceived to b ...
groups and
Roman Catholics
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...
. The second largest religion is
Buddhism
Buddhism ( , ), also known as Buddha Dharma and Dharmavinaya (), is an Indian religion or philosophical tradition based on teachings attributed to the Buddha. It originated in northern India as a -movement in the 5th century BCE, and gra ...
, which is concentrated in the Japanese community, and comprises a larger proportion of the population than any other state. The unaffiliated and nonreligious account for roughly half the population, making Hawaii one of the most secular states.
The Cathedral Church of Saint Andrew in Honolulu was formally the seat of the Hawaiian Reformed Catholic Church, a province of the
Anglican Communion
The Anglican Communion is the third largest Christian communion after the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches. Founded in 1867 in London, the communion has more than 85 million members within the Church of England and other ...
that had been the state church of the Kingdom of Hawaii; it subsequently merged into the Episcopal Church in the 1890s following the overthrow of the Kingdom of Hawaii, becoming the seat of the
Episcopal Diocese of Hawaii
The Episcopal Diocese of Hawai'i is the ecclesiastical territory or diocese of the Episcopal Church of the Anglican Communion in the United States encompassing the state of Hawaii. It is led by the Episcopal Bishop of Hawaii pastoring the Hawaii ...
. The
Cathedral Basilica of Our Lady of Peace
The Cathedral Basilica of Our Lady of Peace ( French: ''Cathédrale de Notre Dame de la Paix''; Portuguese: ''Catedral de Nossa Senhora da Paz''; Hawaiian: ''Malia o ka Malu Hale Pule Nui''; Latin: ''Basilicæ cathedralis Sanctæ Mariæ de Pa ...
and the
Co-Cathedral of Saint Theresa of the Child Jesus
The Co-Cathedral of Saint Theresa of the Child Jesus is a co-cathedral of the Roman Catholic Church and its Diocese of Honolulu. Located in the outskirts of downtown Honolulu, Hawaii. The principal cathedral of the diocese remains the Cathedral ...
serve as seats of the
Roman Catholic Diocese of Honolulu
The Catholic Diocese of Honolulu ( la, Diœcesis Honoluluensis) is a Latin Church ecclesiastical territory or diocese of the Catholic Church that comprises the entire U.S. state, state of Hawaii, Hawaii and the unincorporated Hawaiian Islands.
T ...
the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, informally known as the LDS Church or Mormon Church, is a Nontrinitarianism, nontrinitarian Christianity, Christian church that considers itself to be the Restorationism, restoration of the ...
with 68,128 adherents in 2009; the
United Church of Christ
The United Church of Christ (UCC) is a mainline Protestant Christian denomination based in the United States, with historical and confessional roots in the Congregational, Calvinist, Lutheran, and Anabaptist traditions, and with approximately 4 ...
with 115 congregations and 20,000 members; and the Southern Baptist Convention with 108 congregations and 18,000 members. All non-denominational churches have 128 congregations and 32,000 members.
According to data provided by religious establishments, religion in Hawaii in 2000 was distributed as follows:
* Christianity: 351,000 (29%)
* Buddhism: 110,000 (9%)
* Judaism: 10,000 (1%)
* Other: 100,000 (10%)
* Unaffiliated: 650,000 (51%)
A
Pew
A pew () is a long bench (furniture), bench seat or enclosed box, used for seating Member (local church), members of a Church (congregation), congregation or choir in a Church (building), church, synagogue or sometimes a courtroom.
Overview
...
poll found that the religious composition was as follows:
Birth data
''Note: Births in this table do not add up, because Hispanic peoples are counted both by their ethnicity and by their race, giving a higher overall number.''
:1) Until 2016, data for births of Asian origin, included also births of the Pacific Islander group.
:2) Since 2016, data for births of
White Hispanic
White Latin Americans, or European Latin Americans, are Latin Americans who are considered white, typically due to European descent. Latin American countries have often tolerated intermarriage between different ethnic groups since the beginning ...
origin are not collected, but included in one ''Hispanic'' group; persons of Hispanic origin may be of any race.
LGBTQIA+
Hawaii has had a long history of
LGBTQIA+
' is an initialism that stands for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender. In use since the 1990s, the initialism, as well as some of its common variants, functions as an umbrella term for sexuality and gender identity.
The LGBT term is an ...
identities. ''
Māhū
' ('in the middle') in Native Hawaiian and Tahitian cultures are third gender people with traditional spiritual and social roles within the culture, similar to Tongan ' and Samoan '. Historically māhū were assigned male at birth (AMAB), but in ...
'' ("in the middle") were a precolonial
third gender
Third gender is a concept in which individuals are categorized, either by themselves or by society, as neither man nor woman. It is also a social category present in societies that recognize three or more genders. The term ''third'' is usually ...
with traditional spiritual and social roles, widely respected as healers. Homosexual relationships known as '' aikāne'' were widespread and normal in ancient Hawaiian society. Among men, ''aikāne'' relationships often began as teens and continued throughout their adult lives, even if they also maintained heterosexual partners. While ''aikāne'' usually refers to male homosexuality, some stories also refer to women, implying that women may have been involved in ''aikāne'' relationships as well. Journals written by
Captain Cook
James Cook (7 November 1728 Old Style date: 27 October – 14 February 1779) was a British explorer, navigator, cartographer, and captain in the British Royal Navy, famous for his three voyages between 1768 and 1779 in the Pacific Ocean an ...
's crew record that many ''
aliʻi
The aliʻi were the traditional nobility of the Hawaiian islands. They were part of a hereditary line of rulers, the ''noho aliʻi''.
The word ''aliʻi'' has a similar meaning in the Samoan language and other Polynesian languages, and in Māori ...
'' (hereditary nobles) also engaged in ''aikāne'' relationships, and
Kamehameha the Great
Kamehameha I (; Kalani Paiea Wohi o Kaleikini Kealiikui Kamehameha o Iolani i Kaiwikapu kaui Ka Liholiho Kūnuiākea; – May 8 or 14, 1819), also known as Kamehameha the Great, was the conqueror and first ruler of the Kingdom of Hawaii. T ...
, the founder and first ruler of the
Kingdom of Hawaii
The Hawaiian Kingdom, or Kingdom of Hawaiʻi ( Hawaiian: ''Ko Hawaiʻi Pae ʻĀina''), was a sovereign state located in the Hawaiian Islands. The country was formed in 1795, when the warrior chief Kamehameha the Great, of the independent island ...
, was also known to participate. Cook's second lieutenant and co-astronomer James King observed that "all the chiefs had them", and recounts that Cook was actually asked by one chief to leave King behind, considering the role a great honor.
Hawaiian scholar
Lilikalā Kameʻeleihiwa
Lilikalā K. Kameʻeleihiwa is a Hawaiian historian, filmmaker, and senior professor at the University of Hawaii's Kamakakūokalani Center for Hawaiian Studies. Her earliest work was published under the name of Lilikalā L. Dorton.
With a PhD. ...
notes that ''aikāne'' served a practical purpose of building mutual trust and cohesion; "If you didn't sleep with a man, how could you trust him when you went into battle? How would you know if he was going to be the warrior that would protect you at all costs, if he wasn't your lover?"
As Western colonial influences intensified in the late 19th and early 20th century, the word ''aikāne'' was
expurgated
Expurgation, also known as bowdlerization, is a form of censorship that involves purging anything deemed noxious or offensive from an artistic work or other type of writing or media.
The term ''bowdlerization'' is a pejorative term for the practi ...
of its original sexual meaning, and in print simply meant "friend". Nonetheless, in Hawaiian language publications its metaphorical meaning can still mean either "friend" or "lover" without stigmatization.
A 2012 Gallup poll found that Hawaii had the largest proportion of LGBTQIA+ adults in the U.S., at 5.1%, an estimated 53,966 individuals. The number of same-sex couple households in 2010 was 3,239, representing a 35.5% increase from a decade earlier. In 2013, Hawaii became the fifteenth U.S. state to legalize same-sex marriage; this reportedly boosted tourism by $217million.
Economy
The history of Hawaii's economy can be traced through a succession of dominant industries:
sandalwood
Sandalwood is a class of woods from trees in the genus ''Santalum''. The woods are heavy, yellow, and fine-grained, and, unlike many other aromatic woods, they retain their fragrance for decades. Sandalwood oil is extracted from the woods for us ...
,
whaling
Whaling is the process of hunting of whales for their usable products such as meat and blubber, which can be turned into a type of oil that became increasingly important in the Industrial Revolution.
It was practiced as an organized industry ...
, sugarcane,
pineapple
The pineapple (''Ananas comosus'') is a tropical plant with an edible fruit; it is the most economically significant plant in the family Bromeliaceae. The pineapple is indigenous to South America, where it has been cultivated for many centuri ...
, the military, tourism and education. By the 1840s, sugar plantations had gained a strong foothold in the Hawaiian economy, due to a high demand of sugar in the United States and rapid transport via steamships. Sugarcane plantations were tightly controlled by American missionary families and businessmen known as " the Big Five", who monopolized control of the sugar industry's profits. By the time Hawaiian annexation was being considered in 1898, sugarcane producers turned to cultivating tropical fruits like pineapple, which became the principal export for Hawaiʻi's plantation economy. Since statehood in 1959, tourism has been the largest industry, contributing 24.3% of the gross state product (GSP) in 1997, despite efforts to diversify. The state's gross output for 2003 was billion; per capita income for Hawaii residents in 2014 was . Hawaiian exports include food and clothing. These industries play a small role in the Hawaiian economy, due to the shipping distance to viable markets, such as the
West Coast of the United States
The West Coast of the United States, also known as the Pacific Coast, Pacific states, and the western seaboard, is the coastline along which the Western United States meets the North Pacific Ocean. The term typically refers to the contiguous U.S ...
. The state's food exports include coffee, macadamia nuts, pineapple, livestock, sugarcane and honey.
By weight, honey bees may be the state's most valuable export. According to the Hawaii Agricultural Statistics Service, agricultural sales were million from diversified agriculture, million from pineapple, and million from sugarcane. Hawaii's relatively consistent climate has attracted the seed industry, which is able to test three generations of crops per year on the islands, compared with one or two on the mainland. Seeds yielded million in 2012, supporting 1,400 workers.
, the state's unemployment rate was 3.2%. In 2009, the United States military spent billion in Hawaii, accounting for 18% of spending in the state for that year. 75,000 United States Department of Defense personnel live in Hawaii. According to a 2013 study by Phoenix Marketing International, Hawaii had the fourth-largest number of millionaires per capita in the United States, with a ratio of 7.2%.
Taxation
Tax is collected by the Hawaii Department of Taxation. Most government revenue comes from personal income taxes and a general excise tax (GET) levied primarily on businesses; there is no statewide tax on sales, personal property, or stock transfers, while the effective property tax rate is among the lowest in the country. The high rate of tourism means that millions of visitors generate public revenue through GET and the hotel room tax. However, Hawaii residents generally pay among the most state taxes per person in the U.S.
The Tax Foundation of Hawaii considers the state's tax burden too high, claiming that it contributes to higher prices and the perception of an unfriendly business climate. The nonprofit Tax Foundation ranks Hawaii third in income tax burden and second in its overall tax burden, though notes that a significant portion of taxes are borne by tourists. Former
State Senator
A state senator is a member of a state's senate in the bicameral legislature of 49 U.S. states, or a member of the unicameral Nebraska Legislature.
Description
A state senator is a member of an upper house in the bicameral legislatures of 49 U ...
Sam Slom
Samuel Morgan Slom (born April 13, 1942) is an American politician and a former member of the Hawaii Senate, where he represented the 9th District (which included Hawaii Kai, Aina Haina, Kahala and Diamond Head on the island of Oahu) from 1996 t ...
attributed Hawaii's comparatively high tax rate to the fact that the state government is responsible for education, health care, and social services that are usually handled at a county or municipal level in most other states.
Cost of living
The cost of living in Hawaii, specifically Honolulu, is high compared to that of most major U.S. cities, although it is 6.7% lower than in New York City and 3.6% lower than in San Francisco. These numbers may not take into account some costs, such as increased travel costs for flights, additional shipping fees, and the loss of promotional participation opportunities for customers outside the contiguous U.S. While some online stores offer free shipping on orders to Hawaii, many merchants exclude Hawaii, Alaska, Puerto Rico and certain other U.S. territories.
Hawaiian Electric Industries
Hawaiian Electric Industries, Inc. (HEI; ) is the largest supplier of electricity in the state of Hawaii, supplying power to 95% of Hawaii's population through its electric utilities: Hawaiian Electric Company, Inc., Hawai'i Electric Light Comp ...
, a privately owned company, provides 95% of the state's population with electricity, mostly from fossil-fuel power stations. Average electricity prices in October 2014 () were nearly three times the national average () and 80% higher than the second-highest state, Connecticut.
The median home value in Hawaii in the 2000 U.S. Census was , while the national median home value was . Hawaii home values were the highest of all states, including California with a median home value of . Research from the
National Association of Realtors
The National Association of Realtors (NAR) is an American trade association for those who work in the real estate industry. It has over 1.4 million members, making it one of the biggest trade associations in the USA including NAR's institutes, so ...
places the 2010 median sale price of a single family home in Honolulu, Hawaii, at and the U.S. median sales price at . The sale price of single family homes in Hawaii was the highest of any U.S. city in 2010, just above that of the Silicon Valley area of California ().
Hawaii's very high
cost of living
Cost of living is the cost of maintaining a certain standard of living. Changes in the cost of living over time can be operationalized in a cost-of-living index. Cost of living calculations are also used to compare the cost of maintaining a c ...
is the result of several interwoven factors of the global economy in addition to domestic U.S. government trade policy. Like other regions with desirable weather year-round, such as California,
Arizona
Arizona ( ; nv, Hoozdo Hahoodzo ; ood, Alĭ ṣonak ) is a state in the Southwestern United States. It is the 6th largest and the 14th most populous of the 50 states. Its capital and largest city is Phoenix. Arizona is part of the Fou ...
and Florida, Hawaii's residents can be considered to be subject to a "
sunshine tax "Sunshine tax" or "Paradise tax" is an ironic term used in the United States and Canada to describe the phenomenon that salaries are often lower than the national average, and costs of living higher than the national average, in places that have a d ...
". This situation is further exacerbated by the natural factors of geography and world distribution that lead to higher prices for goods due to increased shipping costs, a problem which many island states and territories suffer from as well.
The higher costs to ship goods across an ocean may be further increased by the requirements of the Jones Act, which generally requires that goods be transported between places within the U.S., including between the mainland U.S. west coast and Hawaii, using only U.S.-owned, built, and crewed ships. Jones Act-compliant vessels are often more expensive to build and operate than foreign equivalents, which can drive up shipping costs. While the Jones Act does not affect transportation of goods to Hawaii directly from Asia, this type of trade is nonetheless not common; this is a result of other primarily economic reasons including additional costs associated with stopping over in Hawaii (e.g. pilot and port fees), the market size of Hawaii, and the economics of using ever-larger ships that cannot be handled in Hawaii for transoceanic voyages. Therefore, Hawaii relies on receiving most inbound goods on Jones Act-qualified vessels originating from the U.S. west coast, which may contribute to the increased cost of some consumer goods and therefore the overall cost of living. Critics of the Jones Act contend that Hawaii consumers ultimately bear the expense of transporting goods imposed by the Jones Act.
Culture
The aboriginal culture of Hawaii is Polynesian. Hawaii represents the northernmost extension of the vast
Polynesian Triangle
The Polynesian Triangle is a region of the Pacific Ocean with three island groups at its corners: Hawai‘i, Easter Island (''Rapa Nui'') and New Zealand (Aotearoa). It is often used as a simple way to define Polynesia.
Outside the triangle, th ...
of the south and central Pacific Ocean. While traditional Hawaiian culture remains as vestiges in modern Hawaiian society, there are re-enactments of the ceremonies and traditions throughout the islands. Some of these cultural influences, including the popularity (in greatly modified form) of '' lūau'' and ''
hula
Hula () is a Hawaiian dance form accompanied by chant (oli) or song (Mele (Hawaiian language), mele). It was developed in the Hawaiian Islands by the Native Hawaiians who originally settled there. The hula dramatizes or portrays the words of t ...
'', are strong enough to affect the wider United States.
Cuisine
The
cuisine of Hawaii
The cuisine of Hawaii incorporates five distinct styles of food, reflecting the diverse food history of settlement and immigration in the Hawaiian Islands.
In the pre-contact period of Ancient Hawaii (300 AD-1778), Polynesian voyagers brough ...
is a fusion of many foods brought by immigrants to the Hawaiian Islands, including the earliest Polynesians and
Native Hawaiian cuisine
Native Hawaiian cuisine refers to the traditional Hawaiian foods that predate contact with Europeans and immigration from East and Southeast Asia. The cuisine consisted of a mix of indigenous plants and animals as well as plants and animals int ...
, and
American
American(s) may refer to:
* American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America"
** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America
** American ancestry, pe ...
,
Chinese
Chinese can refer to:
* Something related to China
* Chinese people, people of Chinese nationality, citizenship, and/or ethnicity
**''Zhonghua minzu'', the supra-ethnic concept of the Chinese nation
** List of ethnic groups in China, people of va ...
,
Filipino
Filipino may refer to:
* Something from or related to the Philippines
** Filipino language, standardized variety of 'Tagalog', the national language and one of the official languages of the Philippines.
** Filipinos, people who are citizens of th ...
,
Japanese
Japanese may refer to:
* Something from or related to Japan, an island country in East Asia
* Japanese language, spoken mainly in Japan
* Japanese people, the ethnic group that identifies with Japan through ancestry or culture
** Japanese diaspor ...
,
Korean
Korean may refer to:
People and culture
* Koreans, ethnic group originating in the Korean Peninsula
* Korean cuisine
* Korean culture
* Korean language
**Korean alphabet, known as Hangul or Chosŏn'gŭl
**Korean dialects and the Jeju language
** ...
Portuguese
Portuguese may refer to:
* anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Portugal
** Portuguese cuisine, traditional foods
** Portuguese language, a Romance language
*** Portuguese dialects, variants of the Portuguese language
** Portu ...
origins. Plant and animal food sources are imported from around the world for agricultural use in Hawaii. '' Poi'', a starch made by pounding
taro
Taro () (''Colocasia esculenta)'' is a root vegetable. It is the most widely cultivated species of several plants in the family Araceae that are used as vegetables for their corms, leaves, and petioles. Taro corms are a food staple in Africa ...
, is one of the traditional foods of the islands. Many local restaurants serve the ubiquitous
plate lunch
The plate lunch ( haw, pā mea ʻai) is a quintessentially Hawaiian meal, roughly analogous to Southern U.S. meat-and-threes. However, the pan-Asian influence on Hawaiian cuisine, and its roots in the Japanese bento, make the plate lunch uniqu ...
, which features two scoops of rice, a simplified version of American
macaroni salad
Macaroni salad is a type of pasta salad, served cold made with cooked elbow macaroni and usually prepared with mayonnaise. Much like potato salad or coleslaw in its use, it is often served as a side dish to barbecue, fried chicken, or other picni ...
and a variety of toppings including
hamburger
A hamburger, or simply burger, is a food consisting of fillings—usually a patty of ground meat, typically Ground beef, beef—placed inside a sliced bun or bread roll. Hamburgers are often served with cheese, lettuce, tomato, onion, pickles ...
patties, a fried egg, and
gravy
Gravy is a sauce often made from the juices of meats that run naturally during cooking and often thickened with wheat flour or corn starch for added texture. The gravy may be further coloured and flavoured with gravy salt (a simple mix of salt an ...
of a ''
loco moco
Loco moco is a dish featured in contemporary cuisine of Hawaii, Hawaiian cuisine. There are many variations, but the traditional loco moco consists of white rice, topped with a hamburger, a fried egg (food), egg, and brown gravy. Variations may ...
'', Japanese style ''
tonkatsu
is a Japanese dish that consists of a breaded, deep-fried pork cutlet. It involves coating slices of pork with panko (bread crumbs), and then frying them in oil. The two main types are fillet and loin. Tonkatsu is also the basis of other dis ...
'' or the traditional lūau favorites, including ''
kālua
Kālua is a traditional Hawaiian cooking method that utilizes an ''imu'', a type of underground oven. The word "''kālua''" ("to cook in an underground oven" in the Hawaiian language) may also be used to describe the food cooked in this manner ...
'' pork and ''
laulau
Laulau, otherwise known as Lū in Tonga, Palusami in Melanesia(Fiji) and Samoa, and Rukau in the Cook Islands, is a Polynesian dish consisting of cooked taro leaves containing fillings such as pork, fish or coconut cream. In old Hawaii, laula ...
''. ''
Spam musubi
Spam musubi is a snack and lunch food composed of a slice of grilled Spam sandwiched either in between or on top of a block of rice, wrapped together with nori in the tradition of Japanese ''onigiri''.
Inexpensive and portable, Spam musubi are ...
'' is an example of the fusion of ethnic cuisine that developed on the islands among the mix of immigrant groups and military personnel. In the 1990s, a group of chefs developed
Hawaii regional cuisine
The cuisine of Hawaii incorporates five distinct styles of food, reflecting the diverse food history of settlement and immigration in the Hawaiian Islands.
In the pre-contact period of Ancient Hawaii (300 AD-1778), Polynesian voyagers brough ...
as a contemporary fusion cuisine.
Customs and etiquette
Some key customs and etiquette in Hawaii are as follows: when visiting a home, it is considered good manners to bring a small gift for one's host (for example, a dessert). Thus, parties are usually in the form of potlucks. Most locals take their shoes off before entering a home. It is customary for Hawaiian families, regardless of ethnicity, to hold a luau to celebrate a child's first birthday. It is also customary at Hawaiian weddings, especially at Filipino weddings, for the bride and groom to do a money dance (also called the
pandanggo
Pandanggo is a Philippine folk dance which has become popular in the rural areas of the Philippines. The dance evolved from Fandango, a Spanish folk dance, which arrived in the Philippines during the Hispanic period. The dance is accompanied by ...
). Print media and local residents recommend that one refer to non-Hawaiians as "locals of Hawaii" or "people of Hawaii".
Hawaiian mythology
Hawaiian mythology includes the legends, historical tales, and sayings of the ancient Hawaiian people. It is considered a variant of a more general
Polynesian mythology
The Polynesian narrative or Polynesian mythology encompasses the oral traditions of the people of Polynesia (a grouping of Central and South Pacific Ocean island archipelagos in the Polynesian Triangle) together with those of the scattered cul ...
that developed a unique character for several centuries before ''circa'' 1800. It is associated with the
Hawaiian religion
Hawaiian religion refers to the indigenous religious beliefs and practices of native Hawaiians, also known as the kapu system. Hawaiian religion is based largely on the tapu religion common in Polynesia and likely originated among the Tahitian ...
, which was officially suppressed in the 19th century but was kept alive by some practitioners to the modern day. Prominent figures and terms include
Aumakua
In Hawaiian mythology, an ʻaumakua (; often spelled aumakua, plural, aumākua) is a personal or family god that originated as a deified ancestor, and which takes on physical forms such as spirit vehicles. An 'aumakua may manifest as a shark, ow ...
, the spirit of an ancestor or family god and
Kāne
In Hawaiian mythology, Kāne is considered the highest of the three major Hawaiian deities, along with Kū and Lono. He represented the god of procreation and was worshipped as ancestor of chiefs and commoners. Kāne is the creator and gives ...
, the highest of the four major Hawaiian deities.
Polynesian mythology
Polynesian mythology is the
oral tradition
Oral tradition, or oral lore, is a form of human communication wherein knowledge, art, ideas and cultural material is received, preserved, and transmitted orally from one generation to another. Vansina, Jan: ''Oral Tradition as History'' (1985 ...
s of the people of Polynesia, a grouping of Central and South Pacific Ocean island
archipelago
An archipelago ( ), sometimes called an island group or island chain, is a chain, cluster, or collection of islands, or sometimes a sea containing a small number of scattered islands.
Examples of archipelagos include: the Indonesian Archi ...
s in the
Polynesian triangle
The Polynesian Triangle is a region of the Pacific Ocean with three island groups at its corners: Hawai‘i, Easter Island (''Rapa Nui'') and New Zealand (Aotearoa). It is often used as a simple way to define Polynesia.
Outside the triangle, th ...
together with the scattered cultures known as the
Polynesian outliers
Polynesian is the adjectival form of Polynesia. It may refer to:
* Polynesians, an ethnic group
* Polynesian culture, the culture of the indigenous peoples of Polynesia
* Polynesian mythology, the oral traditions of the people of Polynesia
* Polyn ...
. Polynesians speak languages that descend from a language reconstructed as
Proto-Polynesian
Proto-Polynesian (abbreviated PPn) is the hypothetical proto-language from which all the modern Polynesian languages descend. It is a daughter language of the Proto-Austronesian language. Historical linguists have reconstructed the language using ...
that was probably spoken in the area around
Tonga
Tonga (, ; ), officially the Kingdom of Tonga ( to, Puleʻanga Fakatuʻi ʻo Tonga), is a Polynesian country and archipelago. The country has 171 islands – of which 45 are inhabited. Its total surface area is about , scattered over in ...
and
Samoa
Samoa, officially the Independent State of Samoa; sm, Sāmoa, and until 1997 known as Western Samoa, is a Polynesian island country consisting of two main islands (Savai'i and Upolu); two smaller, inhabited islands (Manono Island, Manono an ...
in around 1000 BC.
Prior to the 15th century,
Polynesian people
Polynesians form an ethnolinguistic group of closely related people who are native to Polynesia (islands in the Polynesian Triangle), an expansive region of Oceania in the Pacific Ocean. They trace their early prehistoric origins to Island South ...
migrated east to the
Cook Islands
)
, image_map = Cook Islands on the globe (small islands magnified) (Polynesia centered).svg
, capital = Avarua
, coordinates =
, largest_city = Avarua
, official_languages =
, lan ...
, and from there to other island groups such as Tahiti and the
Marquesas
The Marquesas Islands (; french: Îles Marquises or ' or '; Marquesan: ' ( North Marquesan) and ' ( South Marquesan), both meaning "the land of men") are a group of volcanic islands in French Polynesia, an overseas collectivity of France in t ...
. Their descendants later discovered the islands
Tahiti
Tahiti (; Tahitian ; ; previously also known as Otaheite) is the largest island of the Windward group of the Society Islands in French Polynesia. It is located in the central part of the Pacific Ocean and the nearest major landmass is Austr ...
,
Rapa Nui
Easter Island ( rap, Rapa Nui; es, Isla de Pascua) is an island and special territory of Chile in the southeastern Pacific Ocean, at the southeasternmost point of the Polynesian Triangle in Oceania. The island is most famous for its nearly ...
, and later the Hawaiian Islands and
New Zealand
New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island count ...
.
The Polynesian languages are part of the Austronesian language family. Many are close enough in terms of vocabulary and grammar to be
mutually intelligible
In linguistics, mutual intelligibility is a relationship between languages or dialects in which speakers of different but related varieties can readily understand each other without prior familiarity or special effort. It is sometimes used as an ...
. There are also substantial cultural similarities between the various groups, especially in terms of social organization, childrearing, horticulture, building and textile technologies. Their mythologies in particular demonstrate local reworkings of commonly shared tales. The Polynesian cultures each have distinct but related oral traditions; legends or myths are traditionally considered to recount ancient history (the time of "pō") and the adventures of gods ("
atua
Atua are the gods and spirits of the Polynesian peoples such as the Māori mythology, Māori or the Hawaiian religion, Hawaiians (see also ); the Polynesian languages, Polynesian word literally means "power" or "strength" and so the concept is s ...
Island of Hawaii
Hawaii ( ; haw, Hawaii ) is the largest island in the United States, located in the state of Hawaii. It is the southeasternmost of the Hawaiian Islands, a chain of volcanic islands in the North Pacific Ocean. With an area of , it has 63% of th ...
has state parks, recreation areas, and historical parks.
*
Kauai
Kauai, () anglicized as Kauai ( ), is geologically the second-oldest of the main Hawaiian Islands (after Niʻihau). With an area of 562.3 square miles (1,456.4 km2), it is the fourth-largest of these islands and the 21st largest island ...
has the Ahukini State Recreation Pier, six state parks, and the
Russian Fort Elizabeth State Historical Park
Pā'ula'ula State Historical Park (Russian Fort Elizabeth) is a National Historic Landmark and is administered as the Pā'ula'ula State Historical Park just southeast of present-day Waimea, Kauai County, Hawaii, Waimea on the island of Kauai, Kaua ...
.
*
Maui
The island of Maui (; Hawaiian: ) is the second-largest of the islands of the state of Hawaii at 727.2 square miles (1,883 km2) and is the 17th largest island in the United States. Maui is the largest of Maui County's four islands, which ...
has two state monuments, several state parks, and the
Polipoli Spring State Recreation Area
The Polipoli Spring State Recreation Area is a state park of Hawaii in the United States. It is on the island of Maui about ten miles from Kula up the slope of Haleakalā.Moloka'i
Molokai , or Molokai (), is the fifth most populated of the eight major islands that make up the Hawaiian Islands archipelago in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. It is 38 by 10 miles (61 by 16 km) at its greatest length and width with a us ...
Oahu
Oahu () (Hawaiian language, Hawaiian: ''Oʻahu'' ()), also known as "The Gathering place#Island of Oʻahu as The Gathering Place, Gathering Place", is the third-largest of the Hawaiian Islands. It is home to roughly one million people—over t ...
has several state parks, a number of state recreation areas, and a number of monuments, including the
Ulu Pō Heiau State Monument
An ulu ( iu, ᐅᓗ, plural: ''uluit'', 'woman's knife') is an all-purpose knife traditionally used by Inuit, Iñupiat, Yupik, and Aleut women. It is utilized in applications as diverse as skinning and cleaning animals, cutting a child's hair, cu ...
.
Literature
The literature of Hawaii is diverse and includes authors
Kiana Davenport Kiana Davenport (born Diana Davenport in Honolulu, Hawaii) is an American author of part- Hawaiian ancestry. She is the author of critically acclaimed novels ''Shark Dialogues'' (1994) and ''Song of the Exile'', both of which explore aspects of lif ...
,
Lois-Ann Yamanaka
Lois-Ann Yamanaka (born September 7, 1961) is an American poet and novelist from Hawaii. Many of her literary works are written in Hawaiian Pidgin, and some of her writing has dealt with controversial ethnic issues. In particular, her works confro ...
, and
Kaui Hart Hemmings
Kaui Hart Hemmings is an American writer. She is best known for her novel, ''The Descendants'' (2007), which was adapted into an award-winning film.
Biography
Kaui Hart Hemmings was born and raised in Hawaii. She attended Punahou School for ...
. Hawaiian magazines include ''
Hana Hou!
''Hana Hou!'' is an American bi-monthly English language inflight magazine. It is published for Hawaiian Airlines by Honolulu-based Pacific Travelogue Inc.
''Hana Hou!'' (which means '' encore!'' in the Hawaiian language) includes feature stori ...
'', ''
Hawaii Business
''Hawaii Business'' is a Honolulu-based business magazine founded in 1955. Its parent company, PacificBasin Communications, also publishes ''Honolulu Magazine'', ''Hawaii Home + Remodeling'', ''Island Family'', ''Ala Moana magazine'', ''Hawai ...
'' and ''
Honolulu
Honolulu (; ) is the capital and largest city of the U.S. state of Hawaii, which is in the Pacific Ocean. It is an unincorporated county seat of the consolidated City and County of Honolulu, situated along the southeast coast of the island ...
'', among others.
Music
The music of Hawaii includes traditional and popular styles, ranging from native Hawaiian folk music to modern rock and hip hop. Hawaii's musical contributions to the
music of the United States
The music of the United States reflects the country's multi-ethnic population through a diverse array of styles. It is a mixture of music influenced by the music of Europe, Indigenous peoples, West Africa, Latin America, Middle East, North ...
are out of proportion to the state's small size.
Styles such as
slack-key guitar
Slack-key guitar (from Hawaiian ''kī hōalu'', which means "loosen the uningkey") is a fingerstyle genre of guitar music that originated in Hawaii after Portuguese cowboys introduced Spanish guitars there in the late 19th century. The Hawaiian ...
are well known worldwide, while Hawaiian-tinged music is a frequent part of
Hollywood
Hollywood usually refers to:
* Hollywood, Los Angeles, a neighborhood in California
* Hollywood, a metonym for the cinema of the United States
Hollywood may also refer to:
Places United States
* Hollywood District (disambiguation)
* Hollywood, ...
soundtracks. Hawaii also made a major contribution to
country music
Country (also called country and western) is a genre of popular music that originated in the Southern and Southwestern United States in the early 1920s. It primarily derives from blues, church music such as Southern gospel and spirituals, ...
with the introduction of the
steel guitar
A steel guitar ( haw, kīkākila) is any guitar played while moving a steel bar or similar hard object against plucked strings. The bar itself is called a "steel" and is the source of the name "steel guitar". The instrument differs from a conve ...
.
Traditional Hawaiian folk music is a major part of the state's musical heritage. The Hawaiian people have inhabited the islands for centuries and have retained much of their traditional musical knowledge. Their music is largely religious in nature, and includes chanting and dance music.
Hawaiian music has had an enormous impact on the music of other Polynesian islands; according to Peter Manuel, the influence of Hawaiian music is a "unifying factor in the development of modern Pacific musics". Native Hawaiian musician and Hawaiian sovereignty activist
Israel Kamakawiwoʻole
Israel Kaʻanoʻi Kamakawiwoʻole (; meaning 'the fearless eye, the bold face'; May 20, 1959June 26, 1997), also called Bruddah Iz or just simply IZ, was a Hawaiian musician, singer, songwriter, and Hawaiian sovereignty activist.
He achieved ...
, famous for his medley of "
Somewhere Over the Rainbow/What a Wonderful World
"Somewhere Over the Rainbow/What a Wonderful World" (also known as "Over the Rainbow/What a Wonderful World") is a medley of " Over the Rainbow" and "What a Wonderful World", recorded by Hawaiian singer Israel Kamakawiwoʻole. First released on ...
", was named "The Voice of Hawaii" by
NPR
National Public Radio (NPR, stylized in all lowercase) is an American privately and state funded nonprofit media organization headquartered in Washington, D.C., with its NPR West headquarters in Culver City, California. It differs from other ...
in 2010 in its 50 great voices series.
Sports
Due to its distance from the continental United States, team sports in Hawaii are characterised by youth, collegial and amateur teams over professional teams, although some professional teams sports teams have at one time played in the state. Notable professional teams include
The Hawaiians
Hawaiians are the indigenous people of the Hawaiian Islands.
Hawaiians or The Hawaiians may also refer to:
* The Hawaiians (WFL), a football team in the World Football League from 1974 to 1975
* The Hawaiians (film), ''The Hawaiians'' (film), a 1 ...
, which played at the
World Football League
The World Football League (WFL) was an American football league that played one full season in 1974 and most of its second in 1975. Although the league's proclaimed ambition was to bring American football onto a worldwide stage, the farthest t ...
in 1974 and 1975; the
Hawaii Islanders
The Hawaii Islanders were a minor league baseball team based in Honolulu, Hawaii, that played in the Triple-A Pacific Coast League for 27 seasons from 1961 through 1987.
Originally an affiliate of the Kansas City Athletics, the Islanders played ...
, a Triple-A minor league baseball team that played at the
Pacific Coast League
The Pacific Coast League (PCL) is a Minor League Baseball league that operates in the Western United States. Along with the International League, it is one of two leagues playing at the Triple-A (baseball), Triple-A level, which is one grade bel ...
from 1961 to 1987; and
Team Hawaii
Team Hawaii was a soccer team based out of Honolulu that played in the NASL for one season, 1977. Their home field was Aloha Stadium.
After two unsuccessful years as the San Antonio Thunder, the franchise moved to Hawai'i in time for the 1977 ...
, a
North American Soccer League The North American Soccer League may refer to:
*North American Soccer League (1968–1984), a former Division I league
*North American Soccer League (2011–2017)
The North American Soccer League (NASL) was a professional men's soccer league b ...
team that played in 1977.
Notable college sports events in Hawaii include the
Maui Invitational Tournament
The Maui Invitational, currently known as the Maui Jim Maui Invitational, is an annual early-season college basketball tournament that takes place Thanksgiving (US), Thanksgiving week, normally in Lahaina, Hawaii, Lahaina, Hawaii, at the Lahaina ...
,
Diamond Head Classic
The Diamond Head Classic is a three-day invitational college basketball tournament held at the Stan Sheriff Center in Honolulu, Hawaii on the campus of the University of Hawaii-Manoa. Each team plays three games, winners facing winners and losers ...
(basketball) and
Hawaii Bowl
The Hawaiʻi Bowl is a college football bowl game that has been played in the Honolulu, Hawaii area since 2002. The game was originally held at Aloha Stadium in Halawa, Hawaii, a suburb of Honolulu, before moving to the Clarence T. C. Ching Athle ...
(football). The only
NCAA Division I
NCAA Division I (D-I) is the highest level of College athletics, intercollegiate athletics sanctioned by the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) in the United States, which accepts players globally. D-I schools include the major ...
team in Hawaii is the
Hawaii Rainbow Warriors and Rainbow Wahine
The Hawaii Rainbow Warriors and Rainbow Wāhine are the athletic teams that represent the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa (UH), in Honolulu, Hawaii. The UH athletics program is a member of the Big West Conference in most sports and competes a ...
, which competes at the
Big West Conference
The Big West Conference (BWC) is an American collegiate athletic conference whose member institutions participate in the National Collegiate Athletic Association's Division I. The conference was originally formed on July 1, 1969, as the Pacific ...
(major sports),
Mountain West Conference
The Mountain West Conference (MW) is one of the collegiate athletic conferences affiliated with the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) (formerly I-A). The MW officially began operations o ...
(football) and
Mountain Pacific Sports Federation
The Mountain Pacific Sports Federation (MPSF) is a college athletic conference with members located mostly in the western United States, although it now has members as far east as Pennsylvania. The conference participates at the NCAA Division I ...
(minor sports). There are three teams in NCAA Division II:
Chaminade Silverswords
The Chaminade Silverswords are the 10 varsity athletic teams that represent Chaminade University of Honolulu, located in Honolulu, Hawaii, in NCAA Division II intercollegiate sports. The Silverswords compete as members of the Pacific West Confere ...
,
Hawaii Pacific Sharks
The Hawaii Pacific Sharks are the 13 varsity athletic teams that represent Hawaii Pacific University, located in Honolulu, Hawaii, in NCAA Division II intercollegiate sports. The Sharks compete as members of the Pacific West Conference. Hawaii P ...
and Hawaii-Hilo Vulcans, all of which compete at the
Pacific West Conference
The Pacific West Conference (also known as the PacWest) is a college athletic conference affiliated with the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) at the Division II level. Member institutions are located in California and Hawaii.
Th ...
.
Surfing
Surfing is a surface water sport in which an individual, a surfer (or two in tandem surfing), uses a board to ride on the forward section, or face, of a moving wave of water, which usually carries the surfer towards the shore. Waves suitabl ...
has been a central part of
Polynesian culture
Polynesian culture is the culture of the indigenous peoples of Polynesia who share common traits in language, customs and society. The development of Polynesian culture is typically divided into four different historical eras:
*Exploration and se ...
for centuries. Since the late 19th century, Hawaii has become a major site for surfists from around the world. Notable competitions include the
Triple Crown of Surfing
The Triple Crown of Surfing is a Hawaii a specialty series of professional surfing events that have been held annually since 1983 on the North Shore of Oahu, a coastline whose winter swells can reach in height.
The Triple Crown was founded by f ...
and
The Eddie
"The Eddie" is a big wave surfing tournament held at Waimea Bay on the north shore of Oahu, Hawaii. The tournament is named for native Hawaiian, champion big wave surfer, and life-saving Waimea Bay lifeguard, Eddie Aikau. Created in 1984 at nearb ...
. Likewise, Hawaii has produced elite-level swimmers, including five-time Olympic medalist
Duke Kahanamoku
Duke Paoa Kahinu Mokoe Hulikohola Kahanamoku (August 24, 1890 – January 22, 1968) was a Hawaiian competition swimmer who popularized the sport of surfing. A Native Hawaiian, he was born to a minor noble family less than three years before th ...
and
Buster Crabbe
Clarence Linden Crabbe II (; February 7, 1908 – April 23, 1983), known professionally as Buster Crabbe, was an American two-time Olympic swimmer and film and television actor. He won the 1932 Olympic gold medal for 400-meter freestyle swimmi ...
, who set 16 swimming
world records.
Hawaii has hosted the
Sony Open in Hawaii
The Sony Open in Hawaii is a professional golf tournament on the PGA Tour, and is part of the tour's FedEx Cup Series. It has been contested at the Waialae Country Club in Honolulu, Hawaii, since the event's modern-day inception as the Hawaiian O ...
Lotte Championship
The Lotte Championship is a women's professional golf tournament on the LPGA Tour. It debuted in April 2012 LPGA Tour, 2012 at the Ko Olina Golf Club in Kapolei, Hawaii.
The title sponsor of the tournament is Lotte (conglomerate), Lotte, an indu ...
golf tournament since 2012, the
Honolulu Marathon
The Honolulu Marathon (branded JAL Honolulu Marathon for sponsorship reasons) is a marathon (26.2 miles or 42.2km) in Honolulu, Hawaii, first held in 1973. It is one of the world's largest marathons, taking place annually on the second Sunday i ...
since 1973, the
Ironman World Championship
The Ironman World Championship has been held annually in Hawaii since 1978, with an additional race in 1982. It is owned and organized by the World Triathlon Corporation. It is the annual culmination of a series of Ironman triathlon qualification ...
triathlon race since 1978, the
Ultraman
''Ultraman'', also known as the , is the collective name for all media produced by Tsuburaya Productions featuring Ultraman, his many brethren, and the myriad monsters. Debuting with ''Ultra Q'' and then ''Ultraman'' in 1966, the series is one ...
triathlon since 1983, the
National Football League
The National Football League (NFL) is a professional American football league that consists of 32 teams, divided equally between the American Football Conference (AFC) and the National Football Conference (NFC). The NFL is one of the ...
's
Pro Bowl
The National Football League All-Star Game (1939–1942), Pro Bowl (1951–2022), or Pro Bowl Games (starting in 2023) is an annual event held by the National Football League (NFL) featuring the league's star players.
The format has changed thro ...
2008 Pan-Pacific Championship
The 2008 Pan-Pacific Championship is the inaugural edition of the Pan-Pacific Championship association football competition which took place on February 20 and February 23 in Honolulu, Hawaii, featuring teams from Japan's J. League, United States ...
Mixed Martial Arts
Mixed martial arts (MMA), sometimes referred to as cage fighting, no holds barred (NHB), and ultimate fighting, and originally referred to as Vale Tudo is a full-contact combat sport based on striking, grappling and ground fighting, inc ...
fighters, such as former
UFC Lightweight Champion
Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) champions are fighters who have won UFC championships.
Historical notes
At the time of the UFC's inception in 1993, mixed martial arts was not sanctioned in the United States, and did not include weight classe ...
and
UFC Welterweight Champion
Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) champions are fighters who have won UFC championships.
Historical notes
At the time of the UFC's inception in 1993, mixed martial arts was not sanctioned in the United States, and did not include weight classe ...
B.J. Penn
Jay Dee "B.J." Penn III (born December 13, 1978) is an American former professional mixed martial artist and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu practitioner. Penn competed in the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) and in K-1. Penn was the first American Go ...
, and former
UFC Featherweight Champion
Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) champions are fighters who have won UFC championships.
Historical notes
At the time of the UFC's inception in 1993, mixed martial arts was not sanctioned in the United States, and did not include weight classe ...
Max Holloway
Jerome Max Keli'i Holloway (born December 4, 1991) is an American professional mixed martial artist. He currently competes in the Featherweight division in the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC). A professional since 2010, Holloway became the ...
. Other notable Hawaiian Martial Artists include
Travis Browne
Travis Kuualiialoha Browne (born July 17, 1982) is an American retired mixed martial arts, mixed martial artist who last competed as a heavyweight (MMA), Heavyweight in the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC).
Background
Browne was born in H ...
,
K. J. Noons
Karl James "K.J." Noons (born December 7, 1982) is a retired American professional mixed martial artist, as well as a former professional boxer and kickboxer. Noons competed for UFC, Strikeforce, DREAM and EliteXC. He is the former EliteXC ...
,
Brad Tavares
Bradley Kaipo Sarbida Tavares (born December 21, 1987) is an American professional mixed martial artist. Tavares currently competes in the middleweight division for the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC). A professional since 2007, Tavares foug ...
and
Wesley Correira
Wesley John Correira Jr. (born November 11, 1978), nicknamed Cabbage, is an American mixed martial artist who competes in the heavyweight and super heavyweight divisions. An iron chinned brawler, Correira began his career in 2000 and came to pr ...
.
Hawaiians have found success in the world of
sumo wrestling
is a form of competitive full-contact wrestling where a ''rikishi'' (wrestler) attempts to force his opponent out of a circular ring (''dohyō'') or into touching the ground with any body part other than the soles of his feet (usually by thr ...
.
Takamiyama Daigorō
is a former sumo wrestler, the first foreign-born wrestler to win the top division championship (in 1972). His highest rank was ''sekiwake''. His active career spanned twenty years from 1964 to 1984, and he set a number of longevity list of su ...
was the first foreigner to ever win a sumo title in Japan, while his protege
Akebono Tarō
is an American-born Japanese former professional sumo wrestler and professional wrestler from Waimānalo, Hawaii. Joining sumo in Japan in 1988, he was trained by pioneering Hawaiian wrestler Takamiyama and rose swiftly up the rankings, reach ...
became a top-level sumo wrestler in Japan during the 1990s before transitioning into a successful
professional wrestling
Professional wrestling is a form of theater that revolves around staged wrestling matches. The mock combat is performed in a ring similar to the kind used in boxing, and the dramatic aspects of pro wrestling may be performed both in the ring o ...
career in the 2000s. Akebono was the first foreign-born Sumo to reach
Yokozuna
, or , is the top division of the six divisions of professional sumo. Its size is fixed at 42 wrestlers (''rikishi''), ordered into five ranks according to their ability as defined by their performance in previous tournaments.
This is the on ...
in history and helped fuel a boom in interest in Sumo during his career.
Tourism
Tourism is an important part of the Hawaiian economy as it represents ¼ of the economy. According to the Hawaii Tourism: 2019 Annual Visitor Research Report, a total of 10,386,673 visitors arrived in 2019 which increased 5% from the previous year, with expenditures of almost $18 billion. In 2019, tourism provided over 216,000 jobs statewide and contributed more than $2 billion in tax revenue. Due to mild year-round weather, tourist travel is popular throughout the year. Tourists across the globe visited Hawaii in 2019 with over 1 million tourists from the U.S. East, almost 2 million Japanese tourists, and almost 500,000 Canadian tourists.
It was with statehood in 1959 that the Hawaii tourism industry began to grow.
According to Hawaiian scholar
Haunani-Kay Trask
Haunani-Kay Trask (October 3, 1949 – July 3, 2021) was a Native Hawaiian activist, educator, author, and poet. She served as leader of the Hawaiian sovereignty movement and was professor emeritus at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa. She w ...
, tourism in Hawaii has led to the commodification and exploitation of Hawaiian culture resulting in insidious forms of "cultural prostitution". Hawaii has been used to fuel ideas of escapism yet tourism in Hawaii ignores the harm Kanaka and locals experience. Cultural traditions such as the hula have been made "ornamental ... a form of exotica" for tourists as a way for large corporations and land owners to gain profit over the exploitation of Hawaiian people and culture.
Tourism in Hawaii has been considered as an escape from reality resulting in the dismissal of violence faced by Native Hawaiians and locals living on the land. According to scholar
Winona LaDuke
Winona LaDuke (born August 18, 1959) is an American economist, environmentalist, writer and industrial hemp grower, known for her work on tribal land claims and preservation, as well as sustainable development.
In 1996 and 2000, she ran for Vice ...
, native Hawaiians have been forced to gather "shrimp and fish from ponds sitting on resort property". Tourism has also had damaging effects on the environment such as water shortages, overcrowding, sea level rising, elevated sea surface temperatures and micro plastics on beaches.
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, tourism in Hawaii came to a halt, which the land, water, and animals began to heal. Fish like the baby akule and big ulua have returned after years of not being around the bay. The coral reefs, fish, water growth, and limu (algae) growth was able to flourish without the heavy toll of tourism.
There has been pushback against tourism by Native Hawaiians, urging people to not visit the islands. A survey by the Hawaii Tourism Authority indicated over ⅔ of Hawaiians did not want tourists to return to Hawaii. Tourism had "become extractive and hurtful, with tourists coming here and taking, taking, taking, taking, without any reciprocation with locals".
Hawaii hosts numerous cultural events. The annual
Merrie Monarch Festival
The Merrie Monarch Festival is a week-long cultural festival that takes place annually in Hilo, Hawaii during the week after Easter. It honors King David Kalākaua, who was called the "Merrie Monarch" for his patronage of the arts and is cre ...
is an international Hula competition. The
Hawaii International Film Festival
The Hawai'i International Film Festival (HIFF) is an annual film festival held in the United States state of Hawaii.
HIFF has a focus on Asian-Pacific cinema, education, and the work of new and emerging filmmakers. HIFF’s primary festival is h ...
is the premier film festival for Pacific rim cinema. Honolulu hosts the state's long-running LGBT film festival, the
Rainbow Film Festival The Honolulu Rainbow Film Festival (HRFF) is an LGBT film festival held annually in Honolulu which began in 1989 as the Adam Baran Honolulu Gay and Lesbian Film Festival.
History
Businessman Jack Law founded the non-profit Honolulu Gay & Lesbian C ...
.
Health
, Hawaii's health care system insures 92% of residents. Under the state's plan, businesses are required to provide insurance to employees who work more than twenty hours per week. Heavy regulation of insurance companies helps reduce the cost to employers. Due in part to heavy emphasis on preventive care, Hawaiians require hospital treatment less frequently than the rest of the United States, while total health care expenses measured as a percentage of state GDP are substantially lower. Proponents of
universal health care
Universal health care (also called universal health coverage, universal coverage, or universal care) is a health care system in which all residents of a particular country or region are assured access to health care. It is generally organized ar ...
elsewhere in the U.S. sometimes use Hawaii as a model for proposed federal and state health care plans.
Education
Public schools
Hawaii has the only school system within the U.S. that is unified statewide. Policy decisions are made by the fourteen-member state
Board of Education
A board of education, school committee or school board is the board of directors or board of trustees of a school, local school district or an equivalent institution.
The elected council determines the educational policy in a small regional are ...
, which sets policy and hires the superintendent of schools, who oversees the
Hawaii Department of Education
The Hawaii State Department of Education (HIDOE) is a statewide public education system in the United States. The school district can be thought of as analogous to the school districts of other cities and communities in the United States, but i ...
. The Department of Education is divided into seven districts; four on Oahu and one for each of the other three counties.
Public elementary, middle and high school test scores in Hawaii are below national averages on tests mandated under the
No Child Left Behind Act
The No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB) was a U.S. Act of Congress that reauthorized the Elementary and Secondary Education Act; it included Title I provisions applying to disadvantaged students. It supported standards-based education ...
. The Hawaii Board of Education requires all eligible students to take these tests and report all student test scores. This may have unbalanced the results that reported in August 2005 that of 282 schools across the state, 185 failed to reach federal minimum performance standards in mathematics and reading. The ACT college placement tests show that in 2005, seniors scored slightly above the national average (21.9 compared with 20.9), but in the widely accepted
SAT
The SAT ( ) is a standardized test widely used for college admissions in the United States. Since its debut in 1926, its name and scoring have changed several times; originally called the Scholastic Aptitude Test, it was later called the Schola ...
examinations, Hawaii's college-bound seniors tend to score below the national average in all categories except mathematics.
The first native controlled public charter school was the Kanu O Ka Aina New Century Charter School.
Private schools
Hawaii has the highest rates of private school attendance in the nation. During the 2011–2012 school year, Hawaii public and charter schools had an enrollment of 181,213, while private schools had 37,695. Private schools educated over 17% of students in Hawaii that school year, nearly three times the approximate national average of 6%. According to Alia Wong of ''
Honolulu Civil Beat
Honolulu Civil Beat is a news website that practices journalism related to the U.S. state of Hawaii. Journalists and editors at Civil Beat have traveled to other U.S. held territories and military installations in the Pacific, reporting on curren ...
'', this is due to private schools being relatively inexpensive compared to ones on the mainland as well as the overall reputations of private schools.
It has four of the largest independent schools;
Iolani School Iolani is a masculine Hawaiian name meaning "royal '' hawk''." It comes from the Hawaiian words ''ʻio'', meaning "Hawaiian hawk," and ''lani'', meaning "royal."
It may refer to:
*ʻIolani School, a private school located in Hawaii
*ʻIolani Pala ...
,
Kamehameha Schools
Kamehameha Schools, formerly called Kamehameha Schools Bishop Estate (KSBE), is a private school system in Hawaii established by the Bernice Pauahi Bishop Estate, under the terms of the will of Princess Bernice Pauahi Bishop, who was a formal membe ...
,
Mid-Pacific Institute
Mid-Pacific Institute is a private, co-educational college preparatory school for grades preschool through twelve with an approximate enrollment of 1,538 students, the majority of whom are from Hawaii (although many also come from other states and ...
and
Punahou School
Punahou School (known as Oahu College until 1934) is a private, co-educational, college preparatory school in Honolulu, Hawaii. More than 3,700 students attend the school from kindergarten through twelfth grade, 12th grade. Protestant missionar ...
.
Pacific Buddhist Academy
The Pacific Buddhist Academy is a private, co-educational college preparatory high school in Honolulu, Hawaii.
The school's stated mission is "To prepare students for college through academic excellence, enrich their lives with Buddhist values, a ...
, the second Buddhist high school in the U.S. and first such school in Hawaii, was founded in 2003.
Independent schools can select their students, while most public schools of HIDOE are open to all students in their attendance zones. The Kamehameha Schools are the only schools in the U.S. that openly grant admission to students based on ancestry; collectively, they are one of the wealthiest schools in the United States, if not the world, having over eleven billion US dollars in estate assets. In 2005, Kamehameha enrolled 5,398 students, 8.4% of the Native Hawaiian children in the state.
Colleges and universities
The largest institution of higher learning in Hawaii is the
University of Hawaii System
A university () is an institution
Institutions are humanly devised structures of rules and norms that shape and constrain individual behavior. All definitions of institutions generally entail that there is a level of persistence and continu ...
, which consists of the research university at Mānoa, two comprehensive campuses at
Hilo
Hilo () is a census-designated place (CDP) and the largest settlement in Hawaii County, Hawaii, Hawaii County, Hawaii, United States, which encompasses the Hawaii (island), Island of Hawaii. The population was 44,186 according to the 2020 United ...
and West Oahu, and seven community colleges. Private universities include
Brigham Young University–Hawaii
Brigham Young University–Hawaii (BYU–Hawaii) is a private university in Laie, Hawaii. It is owned and operated by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church). BYU-Hawaii was founded in 1955, and became a satellite campus of ...
,
Chaminade University of Honolulu
Chaminade University of Honolulu is a private Marianist university in Honolulu, Hawaii. Founded in 1955 by the Society of Mary, Chaminade is located in Kaimuki, Honolulu at the base of St. Louis Heights. Chaminade offers bachelor's degrees in ...
,
Hawaii Pacific University
Hawaii Pacific University (HPU) is a private university in downtown Honolulu, Makapuʻu and Kāneʻohe, Hawaii. HPU is the largest private university in the central Pacific, most noted for its diverse student body of nearly 5,000 students, re ...
, and
Wayland Baptist University
Wayland Baptist University (WBU) is a private Baptist university based in Plainview, Texas. It is affiliated with the Baptist General Convention of Texas (Southern Baptist Convention). Wayland Baptist has 11 campuses in five Texas cities, six ...
seminary
A seminary, school of theology, theological seminary, or divinity school is an educational institution for educating students (sometimes called ''seminarians'') in scripture, theology, generally to prepare them for ordination to serve as clergy, ...
of the
Roman Catholic Diocese of Honolulu
The Catholic Diocese of Honolulu ( la, Diœcesis Honoluluensis) is a Latin Church ecclesiastical territory or diocese of the Catholic Church that comprises the entire U.S. state, state of Hawaii, Hawaii and the unincorporated Hawaiian Islands.
T ...
. Kona hosts the
University of the Nations
The University of the Nations (U of N) is an unaccredited Christianity, Christian university. The University of the Nations operates under the umbrella organization of the Youth With A Mission (YWAM) network.
History
The institution was founded ...
, which is not an
accredited
Accreditation is the independent, third-party evaluation of a conformity assessment body (such as certification body, inspection body or laboratory) against recognised standards, conveying formal demonstration of its impartiality and competence to ...
university.
Transportation
A system of state highways encircles each main island. Only Oahu has federal highways, and is the only area outside the contiguous 48 states to have signed
Interstate highways
The Dwight D. Eisenhower National System of Interstate and Defense Highways, commonly known as the Interstate Highway System, is a network of controlled-access highways that forms part of the National Highway System in the United States. Th ...
. Narrow, winding roads and congestion in populated places can slow traffic. Each major island has a public bus system.
Honolulu International Airport
Daniel K. Inouye International Airport , also known as Honolulu International Airport, is the main airport of Oahu, Hawaii.IATA
The International Air Transport Association (IATA ) is a trade association of the world's airlines founded in 1945. IATA has been described as a cartel since, in addition to setting technical standards for airlines, IATA also organized tariff ...
:HNL), which shares runways with the adjacent
Hickam Field Hickam may refer to:
;Surname
*Homer Hickam (born 1943), American author, Vietnam veteran, and a former NASA engineer
** October Sky: The Homer Hickam Story, 1999 American biographical film
*Horace Meek Hickam (1885–1934), pioneer airpower advoca ...
(IATA:HIK), is the major commercial aviation hub of Hawaii. The commercial aviation airport offers intercontinental service to North America, Asia, Australia and Oceania.
Hawaiian Airlines
Hawaiian Airlines ( haw, Hui Mokulele o Hawaiʻi ) is the largest operator of commercial flights to and from the U.S. state of Hawaii. It is the tenth-largest commercial airline in the United States, and is based at Honolulu, Hawaii. The airl ...
and
Mokulele Airlines
Southern Airways Express, doing business as Mokulele Airlines, is an American commuter airline operating in Hawaii. The airline operates scheduled inter-island and charter flights among all Hawaiian islands with airports. Mokulele Airlines wa ...
use jets to provide services between the large airports in Honolulu, Līhue, Kahului, Kona and Hilo. These airlines also provide air freight services between the islands. On May 30, 2017, the airport was officially renamed as the
Daniel K. Inouye International Airport
Daniel K. Inouye International Airport , also known as Honolulu International Airport, is the main airport of Oahu, Hawaii.Daniel K. Inouye.
Until air passenger services began in the 1920s, private boats were the sole means of traveling between the islands. Seaflite operated
hydrofoils
A hydrofoil is a lifting surface, or foil, that operates in water. They are similar in appearance and purpose to aerofoils used by aeroplanes. Boats that use hydrofoil technology are also simply termed hydrofoils. As a hydrofoil craft gains sp ...
between the major islands in the mid-1970s.
The
Hawaii Superferry
Hawaii Superferry was a Hawaii-based transportation company that provided passenger and vehicle transportation between Honolulu Harbor on the island of Oahu and Kahului Harbor on Maui. Legal issues over environmental impact statements and prot ...
operated between Oahu and Maui between December 2007 and March 2009, with additional routes planned for other islands. Protests and legal problems over environmental impact statements ended the service, though the company operating Superferry has expressed a wish to recommence ferry services in the future. Currently there is a passenger ferry service in
Maui County
Maui County, officially the County of Maui, is a county in the U.S. state of Hawaii. It consists of the islands of Maui, Lānai, Molokai (except for a portion of Molokai that comprises Kalawao County), Kahoolawe, and Molokini. The latter two ar ...
between Lanai and Maui, which does not take vehicles; a passenger ferry to Molokai ended in 2016. Currently
Norwegian Cruise Lines
Norwegian Cruise Line (NCL), also known in short as Norwegian, is an American cruise line founded in 1966, incorporated in Bermuda and headquartered in Miami. It is the List of cruise lines, fourth-largest cruise line in the world by passengers, ...
and
Princess Cruises
Princess Cruises is an American cruise line owned by Carnival Corporation & plc. The company is incorporated in Bermuda and its headquarters are in Santa Clarita, California, Santa Clarita, California. As of 2021, it is the List of cruise lines# ...
provide passenger cruise ship services between the larger islands.
Rail
At one time Hawaii had a network of railroads on each of the larger islands that transported farm commodities and passengers. Most were
narrow gauge
A narrow-gauge railway (narrow-gauge railroad in the US) is a railway with a track gauge narrower than standard . Most narrow-gauge railways are between and .
Since narrow-gauge railways are usually built with tighter curves, smaller structu ...
systems but there were some gauge on some of the smaller islands. The standard gauge in the U.S. is . By far the largest railroad was the
Oahu Railway and Land Company
The Oahu Railway and Land Company, or OR&L, was a narrow gauge common carrier railway that served much of the Hawaiian island of Oahu, and was the largest narrow gauge class one common carrier in the U.S, until its dissolution in 1947.
Origin
T ...
(OR&L) that ran lines from Honolulu across the western and northern part of Oahu.
The OR&L was important for moving troops and goods during World War II. Traffic on this line was busy enough for signals to be used to facilitate movement of trains and to require wigwag signals at some railroad crossings for the protection of motorists. The main line was officially abandoned in 1947, although part of it was bought by the U.S. Navy and operated until 1970. of track remain; preservationists occasionally run trains over a portion of this line. The
Honolulu High-Capacity Transit Corridor Project
The Honolulu Rail Transit Project (also known as the Honolulu High-Capacity Transit Corridor Project) is a light metro system under construction in Honolulu County, Hawaii, U.S. The mostly elevated system features design elements from both heavy ...
aims to add elevated passenger rail on Oahu to relieve highway congestion.
Governance
Political subdivisions and local government
The movement of the Hawaiian royal family from Hawaii Island to Maui, and subsequently to Oahu, explains the modern-day distribution of population centers.
Kamehameha III
Kamehameha III (born Kauikeaouli) (March 17, 1814 – December 15, 1854) was the third king of the Kingdom of Hawaii from 1825 to 1854. His full Hawaiian name is Keaweaweula Kīwalaō Kauikeaouli Kaleiopapa and then lengthened to Keaweaweula K ...
chose the largest city, Honolulu, as his capital because of its natural harbor—the present-day
Honolulu Harbor
Honolulu Harbor, also called ''Kulolia'' and ''Ke Awa O Kou'' and the Port of Honolulu , is the principal seaport of Honolulu and the State of Hawaii in the United States. From the harbor, the City & County of Honolulu was developed and urbanized ...
. Now the state capital, Honolulu is located along the southeast coast of Oahu. The previous capital was
Lahaina
Lahaina ( haw, Lāhainā) is the largest census-designated place (CDP) in West Maui, Maui County, Hawaii, United States and includes the Kaanapali and Kapalua beach resorts. As of the 2020 census, the CDP had a resident population of 12,702. Laha ...
, Maui, and before that
Kailua-Kona
Kailua-Kona is an unincorporated community and census-designated place (CDP) in Hawaii County, Hawaii, United States. It is also known as Kailua (a name it shares with a community located on the windward side of Oahu), as Kona (a name it shares ...
, Hawaii. Some major towns are
Hilo
Hilo () is a census-designated place (CDP) and the largest settlement in Hawaii County, Hawaii, Hawaii County, Hawaii, United States, which encompasses the Hawaii (island), Island of Hawaii. The population was 44,186 according to the 2020 United ...
;
Kaneohe
Kāneohe () is a census-designated place (CDP) included in the City and County of Honolulu and located in Hawaii state District of Koolaupoko on the island of Oahu. In the Hawaiian language, ''kāne ohe'' means "bamboo man". According to an a ...
;
Kailua
Kailua () is a census-designated place (CDP) in Honolulu County, Hawaii, United States. It lies in the North Koolaupoko, Hawaii, Koolaupoko District of the island of Oahu, Oahu on the windward and leeward, windward coast at Kailua Bay. It is i ...
;
Pearl City
Pearl City is an Unincorporated area, unincorporated community and census-designated place (CDP) located in the Ewa District and Honolulu County, Hawaii, City & County of Honolulu on the Island of Oahu, Oahu. As of the United States 2010 Census, ...
;
Waipahu
Waipahu () is a former sugarcane plantation town and now census-designated place (CDP) located in the Ewa District on the island of Oahu in the City & County of Honolulu, Hawaii, United States. As of the 2020 census, the CDP population was 43,4 ...
;
Kahului
Kahului () is a census-designated place (CDP) in Maui County in the U.S. state of Hawaii. It hosts the county's main airport (Kahului Airport), deep-draft harbor, light industrial areas, and commercial shopping centers. The population was 26,337 ...
;
Kailua-Kona
Kailua-Kona is an unincorporated community and census-designated place (CDP) in Hawaii County, Hawaii, United States. It is also known as Kailua (a name it shares with a community located on the windward side of Oahu), as Kona (a name it shares ...
City and County of Honolulu
Honolulu County (officially known as the City and County of Honolulu, formerly Oahu County) is a consolidated city–county in the U.S. state of Hawaii. The city–county includes both the city of Honolulu (the state's capital and largest city ...
,
Hawaii County
Hawaii ( ; haw, Hawaii or ) is a state in the Western United States, located in the Pacific Ocean about from the U.S. mainland. It is the only U.S. state outside North America, the only state that is an archipelago, and the only state ...
,
Maui County
Maui County, officially the County of Maui, is a county in the U.S. state of Hawaii. It consists of the islands of Maui, Lānai, Molokai (except for a portion of Molokai that comprises Kalawao County), Kahoolawe, and Molokini. The latter two ar ...
,
Kauai County
Kauai County ( haw, Kalana o Kauaʻi) (officially known as the County of Kauai) is a county in the U.S. state of Hawaii. It consists of the islands of Kauai, Niihau, Lehua, and Kaula. As of the 2020 Census the population was 73,298. The county ...
, and
Kalawao County
Kalawao () is a location on the eastern side of the Kalaupapa Peninsula of the island of Molokai, in Hawaii, which was the site of Hawaii's leper colony between 1866 and the early 20th century. Thousands of people in total came to the island to ...
.
Hawaii has the fewest local governments among U.S. states. Unique to this state is the lack of municipal governments. All local governments are generally administered at the
county
A county is a geographic region of a country used for administrative or other purposesChambers Dictionary, L. Brookes (ed.), 2005, Chambers Harrap Publishers Ltd, Edinburgh in certain modern nations. The term is derived from the Old French ...
level. The only incorporated area in the state is
Honolulu County
Honolulu County (officially known as the City and County of Honolulu, formerly Oahu County) is a consolidated city–county in the U.S. state of Hawaii. The city–county includes both the city of Honolulu (the state's capital and largest city) ...
, a
consolidated city–county
In United States local government, a consolidated city-county is formed when one or more cities and their surrounding county ( parish in Louisiana, borough in Alaska) merge into one unified jurisdiction. As such it has the governmental powers o ...
that governs the entire island of Oahu. County executives are referred to as mayors; these are the
Mayor of Hawaii County
The Mayor of Hawaii is the chief executive officer of the County of Hawaii in the state of Hawaii. The mayor has municipal jurisdiction over the Big Island of Hawaii. The current mayor is Mitch Roth.Mayor of Honolulu
The mayor of Honolulu is the chief executive officer of the City and County of Honolulu. An office established in 1900 and modified in 1907, the mayor of Honolulu is elected by universal suffrage of residents of Honolulu to no more than two four ...
,
Mayor of Kauai
The Mayor of Kauai is the chief executive officer of the County of Kauai in the state of Hawaii. The mayor has municipal jurisdiction over the islands of Kauai and Ni’ihau. Derek Kawakami was elected on November 6, 2018, as the mayor of Kauai ...
, and the
Mayor of Maui
The Mayor of Maui County is the chief executive officer of the Maui County, Hawaii, County of Maui in the U.S. state, state of Hawaii. The Mayor has municipal jurisdiction over the islands of Kahoolawe, Lanai, Maui and Molokai. The Mayor of Maui ...
. The mayors are all elected in
nonpartisan
Nonpartisanism is a lack of affiliation with, and a lack of bias towards, a political party.
While an Oxford English Dictionary definition of ''partisan'' includes adherents of a party, cause, person, etc., in most cases, nonpartisan refers sp ...
elections. Kalawao County has no elected government, and as mentioned above there are no local
school district
A school district is a special-purpose district that operates local public primary and secondary schools in various nations.
North America United States
In the U.S, most K–12 public schools function as units of local school districts, wh ...
s; instead, all local public education is administered at the state level by the
Hawaii Department of Education
The Hawaii State Department of Education (HIDOE) is a statewide public education system in the United States. The school district can be thought of as analogous to the school districts of other cities and communities in the United States, but i ...
The state government of Hawaii is modeled after the federal government with adaptations originating from the kingdom era of Hawaiian history. As codified in the
Constitution of Hawaii
The Constitution of the State of Hawaii ( haw, Kumukānāwai o Hawaiʻi) refers to various legal documents throughout the history of the Hawaiian Islands that defined the fundamental principles of authority and governance within its sphere of juri ...
, there are three
branches of government
Separation of powers refers to the division of a state's government into branches, each with separate, independent powers and responsibilities, so that the powers of one branch are not in conflict with those of the other branches. The typic ...
: executive, legislative and judicial. The executive branch is led by the
Governor of Hawaii
, insignia = Logo of the Office of the Governor of Hawaii.png
, insigniasize = 110px
, insigniacaption = Gubernatorial logo
, flag = Flag of the Governor of Hawaii.svg
, flagborder = yes
, flagcaption = Standard of the Governor
, image ...
, who is assisted by the
Lieutenant Governor of Hawaii
The lieutenant governor of Hawaii ( haw, Hope kiaʻāina o Hawaiʻi) is the assistant chief executive of the U.S. state of Hawaii and its various agencies and departments, as provided in the Article V, Sections 2 though 6 of the Constitution of H ...
, both of whom are elected on the same ticket. The governor is the only state public official elected statewide; all others are appointed by the governor. The lieutenant governor acts as the Secretary of State. The governor and lieutenant governor oversee twenty agencies and departments from offices in the
State Capitol
This is a list of state and territorial capitols in the United States, the building or complex of buildings from which the government of each U.S. state, the District of Columbia and the organized territories of the United States, exercise its ...
. The official residence of the governor is
Washington Place
Washington Place is a Greek Revival palace in the Hawaii Capital Historic District in Honolulu, Hawaii. It was where Queen Liliuokalani was arrested during the overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom. Later it became the official residence of the governo ...
.
The legislative branch consists of the
bicameral
Bicameralism is a type of legislature, one divided into two separate assemblies, chambers, or houses, known as a bicameral legislature. Bicameralism is distinguished from unicameralism, in which all members deliberate and vote as a single grou ...
Hawaii State Legislature
The Hawaii State Legislature is the state legislature of the U.S. state of Hawaii. The state legislature is a bicameral body consisting of a lower house, the Hawaii State House of Representatives, with 51 representatives, and an upper house, the ...
, which is composed of the 51-member
Hawaii House of Representatives
The Hawaii House of Representatives is the lower house of the Hawaii State Legislature. Pursuant to Article III, Section 3 of the Constitution of Hawaii, amended during the 1978 constitutional convention, the House of Representatives consis ...
led by the
Speaker of the House
The speaker of a deliberative assembly, especially a legislative body, is its presiding officer, or the chair. The title was first used in 1377 in England.
Usage
The title was first recorded in 1377 to describe the role of Thomas de Hungerf ...
, and the 25-member
Hawaii Senate
The Hawaii Senate is the upper house of the Hawaii State Legislature. It consists of twenty-five members elected from an equal number of constituent districts across the islands and is led by the President of the Senate, elected from the membe ...
led by the
President of the Senate
President of the Senate is a title often given to the presiding officer of a senate. It corresponds to the speaker in some other assemblies.
The senate president often ranks high in a jurisdiction's succession for its top executive office: for e ...
. The Legislature meets at the State Capitol. The unified judicial branch of Hawaii is the
Hawaii State Judiciary
The Hawaii State Judiciary is the official name of the judicial system of Hawaii in the United States. Based in Honolulu, the Hawaii State Judiciary is a unified state court system that functions under the Chief Justice of the Hawaii State Suprem ...
Supreme Court of Hawaii
The Supreme Court of Hawaii is the highest court of the Hawaii, State of Hawaii in the United States. Its decisions are binding on all other courts of the Hawaii State Judiciary. The principal purpose of the Supreme Court is to review the decis ...
117th United States Congress
The 117th United States Congress is the current meeting of the legislative branch of the United States federal government, composed of the United States Senate and the United States House of Representatives. It convened in Washington, D.C., on ...
">
Brian Schatz, official portrait, 113th Congress 2.jpg, Senator
Brian Schatz
Brian Emanuel Schatz (; born October 20, 1972) is an American educator and politician serving as the senior United States senator from Hawaii, a seat he has held since 2012. A member of the Democratic Party, Schatz served in the Hawaii House o ...
Mazie Hirono, official portrait, 113th Congress.jpg, Senator
Mazie Hirono
Mazie Keiko Hirono (; Japanese name: , ; born November 3, 1947) is an American lawyer and politician serving as the junior United States senator from Hawaii since 2013. A member of the Democratic Party, Hirono previously served as a member of the ...
Ed Case, Official Portrait, 116th Congress 2.jpg, Representative
Ed Case
Edward Espenett Case (born September 27, 1952) is an American lawyer and Democratic politician serving as the U.S. representative for Hawaii's 1st congressional district, which covers the urban core of Honolulu. He represented the 2nd distric ...
Kai Kahele
Kaialiʻi Kahele (born March 28, 1974) is an American politician, educator, and commercial pilot serving as the U.S. representative for Hawaii's 2nd congressional district. From 2016 to 2020, he served in the Hawaii Senate from the 1st district. ...
United States Congress
The United States Congress is the legislature of the federal government of the United States. It is bicameral, composed of a lower body, the House of Representatives, and an upper body, the Senate. It meets in the U.S. Capitol in Washing ...
by two senators and two representatives. , all four seats are held by Democrats. Former representative
Ed Case
Edward Espenett Case (born September 27, 1952) is an American lawyer and Democratic politician serving as the U.S. representative for Hawaii's 1st congressional district, which covers the urban core of Honolulu. He represented the 2nd distric ...
Kai Kahele
Kaialiʻi Kahele (born March 28, 1974) is an American politician, educator, and commercial pilot serving as the U.S. representative for Hawaii's 2nd congressional district. From 2016 to 2020, he served in the Hawaii Senate from the 1st district. ...
represents the 2nd congressional district, representing the rest of the state, which is largely rural and semi-rural.
Brian Schatz
Brian Emanuel Schatz (; born October 20, 1972) is an American educator and politician serving as the senior United States senator from Hawaii, a seat he has held since 2012. A member of the Democratic Party, Schatz served in the Hawaii House o ...
is the senior United States senator from Hawaii. He was appointed to the office on December 26, 2012, by Governor
Neil Abercrombie
Neil Abercrombie (born June 26, 1938) is an American politician who served as the seventh governor of Hawaii from 2010 to 2014. He is a member of the Democratic Party.
Born in Buffalo, New York, Abercrombie is a graduate of Union College and the ...
, following the death of former senator
Daniel Inouye
Daniel Ken Inouye ( ; September 7, 1924 – December 17, 2012) was an American lawyer and politician who served as a United States senator from Hawaii from 1963 until his death in 2012. Beginning in 1959, he was the first U.S. representative f ...
. The state's junior senator is
Mazie Hirono
Mazie Keiko Hirono (; Japanese name: , ; born November 3, 1947) is an American lawyer and politician serving as the junior United States senator from Hawaii since 2013. A member of the Democratic Party, Hirono previously served as a member of the ...
, the former representative from the second congressional district. Hirono is the first female Asian American senator and the first Buddhist senator. Hawaii incurred the biggest
seniority
Seniority is the state of being older or placed in a higher position of status relative to another individual, group, or organization. For example, one employee may be senior to another either by role or rank (such as a CEO vice a manager), or by ...
shift between the 112th and 113th Congresses. The state went from a delegation consisting of senators who were first and twenty-first in seniority to their respective replacements, relative newcomers Schatz and Hirono.
Federal officials in Hawaii are based at the Prince Kūhiō Federal Building near the
Aloha Tower
The Aloha Tower is a retired lighthouse that is considered one of the landmarks of the state of Hawaii in the United States. Opened on September 11, 1926, at a then astronomical cost of $160,000, the Aloha Tower is located at Pier 9 of Honolulu Ha ...
and Honolulu Harbor. The
Federal Bureau of Investigation
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is the domestic intelligence and security service of the United States and its principal federal law enforcement agency. Operating under the jurisdiction of the United States Department of Justice, ...
,
Internal Revenue Service
The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) is the revenue service for the United States federal government, which is responsible for collecting U.S. federal taxes and administering the Internal Revenue Code, the main body of the federal statutory ta ...
and the
Secret Service
A secret service is a government agency, intelligence agency, or the activities of a government agency, concerned with the gathering of intelligence data. The tasks and powers of a secret service can vary greatly from one country to another. For ...
maintain their offices there; the building is also the site of the
federal
Federal or foederal (archaic) may refer to:
Politics
General
*Federal monarchy, a federation of monarchies
*Federation, or ''Federal state'' (federal system), a type of government characterized by both a central (federal) government and states or ...
United States Attorney for the District of Hawaii The United States Attorney for the District of Hawaii — also known as the United States Attorney and U.S. Attorney — is the chief law enforcement officer representing the federal government in the United States District Court for the Di ...
.
Politics
Since gaining statehood and participating in its first election in
1960
It is also known as the "Year of Africa" because of major events—particularly the independence of seventeen African nations—that focused global attention on the continent and intensified feelings of Pan-Africanism.
Events
January
* Ja ...
, Hawaii has supported Democrats in all but two presidential elections:
1972
Within the context of Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) it was the longest year ever, as two leap seconds were added during this 366-day year, an event which has not since been repeated. (If its start and end are defined using Solar time, me ...
and
1984
Events
January
* January 1 – The Bornean Sultanate of Brunei gains full independence from the United Kingdom, having become a British protectorate in 1888.
* January 7 – Brunei becomes the sixth member of the Association of Southeast A ...
, both of which were landslide reelection victories for Republicans
Richard Nixon
Richard Milhous Nixon (January 9, 1913April 22, 1994) was the 37th president of the United States, serving from 1969 to 1974. A member of the Republican Party, he previously served as a representative and senator from California and was ...
and
Ronald Reagan
Ronald Wilson Reagan ( ; February 6, 1911June 5, 2004) was an American politician, actor, and union leader who served as the 40th president of the United States from 1981 to 1989. He also served as the 33rd governor of California from 1967 ...
respectively. In Hawaii's statehood tenure, only Minnesota has supported Republican candidates fewer times in presidential elections. The 2016
Cook Partisan Voting Index
The Cook Partisan Voting Index, abbreviated Cook PVI, CPVI, or PVI, is a measurement of how strongly a United States congressional district or U.S. state leans toward the Democratic or Republican Party, compared to the nation as a whole, based ...
ranks Hawaii as the most heavily Democratic state in the nation.
Hawaii has not elected a Republican to represent the state in the U.S. Senate since
Hiram Fong
Hiram Leong Fong (born Yau Leong Fong; October 15, 1906 – August 18, 2004) was an American businessman, lawyer, and politician from Hawaii. Born to a sugar plantation Cantonese immigrant worker, Fong became the first Chinese-American and first ...
in 1970; since 1977, both of the state's U.S. Senators have been Democrats.
In
2004
2004 was designated as an International Year of Rice by the United Nations, and the International Year to Commemorate the Struggle Against Slavery and its Abolition (by UNESCO).
Events January
* January 3 – Flash Airlines Flight 6 ...
,
John Kerry
John Forbes Kerry (born December 11, 1943) is an American attorney, politician and diplomat who currently serves as the first United States special presidential envoy for climate. A member of the Forbes family and the Democratic Party (Unite ...
won the state's four electoral votes by a margin of nine percentage points with 54% of the vote. Every county supported the Democratic candidate. In 1964,
favorite son
Favorite son (or favorite daughter) is a political term.
* At the quadrennial American national political party conventions, a state delegation sometimes nominates a candidate from the state, or less often from the state's region, who is not a ...
candidate senator Hiram Fong of Hawaii sought the
Republican
Republican can refer to:
Political ideology
* An advocate of a republic, a type of government that is not a monarchy or dictatorship, and is usually associated with the rule of law.
** Republicanism, the ideology in support of republics or agains ...
presidential nomination, while
Patsy Mink
Patsy Matsu Mink (née Takemoto; December 6, 1927 – September 28, 2002) was an American attorney and politician from the U.S. state of Hawaii. Mink was a third-generation Japanese American, having been born and raised on the island of Maui. ...
ran in the Oregon primary in 1972.
Honolulu-born
Barack Obama
Barack Hussein Obama II ( ; born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who served as the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, Obama was the first African-American president of the U ...
, then serving as a
United States senator
The United States Senate is the Upper house, upper chamber of the United States Congress, with the United States House of Representatives, House of Representatives being the Lower house, lower chamber. Together they compose the national Bica ...
from
Illinois
Illinois ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern United States. Its largest metropolitan areas include the Chicago metropolitan area, and the Metro East section, of Greater St. Louis. Other smaller metropolita ...
, was elected the 44th president of the United States on November 4, 2008, and was re-elected for a second term on November 6, 2012. Obama had won the Hawaii Democratic caucus on February 19, 2008, with 76% of the vote. He was the third Hawaii-born candidate to seek the nomination of a major party, the first presidential nominee and first president from Hawaii.
In a 2020 study, Hawaii was ranked as the 6th easiest state for citizens to vote in.
Law enforcement
Hawaii has a statewide sheriff department under its Department of Public Safety that provides law enforcement protection to government buildings and
Daniel K. Inouye International Airport
Daniel K. Inouye International Airport , also known as Honolulu International Airport, is the main airport of Oahu, Hawaii.Kauai County Police Department for the island of Kauai
*
Honolulu Police Department
The Honolulu Police Department (HPD) is the principal law enforcement agency of the City and County of Honolulu, Hawaii, headquartered in the Alapa'i Police Headquarters in Honolulu CDP.
Officially recognized as a part of the government of the ...
for Oahu
*
Maui County Police Department
The Maui County Police Department provides law enforcement for Maui County, Hawaii which includes the islands Molokai and Lanai. The current Police Chief is John Pelletier.
History
The County Act of 1905 established the five districts for Maui C ...
for Molokai, Maui and Lanai
*
Hawaii County Police Department
The Hawai'i County Police Department provides police services for the island of Hawai'i, known locally as the "Big Island". According to the 2010 Census, it covers of varied terrain with 185,079 residents and thousands of visitors.
Operation ...
for the Big Island
Forensic services for all agencies in the state are provided by the
Honolulu Police Department
The Honolulu Police Department (HPD) is the principal law enforcement agency of the City and County of Honolulu, Hawaii, headquartered in the Alapa'i Police Headquarters in Honolulu CDP.
Officially recognized as a part of the government of the ...
.
In January 2022, state officials proposed legislation that would split the sheriff department from the Department of Public Safety and consolidate it with the criminal investigation division from the Department of the Attorney General to create a new Department of Law Enforcement that would create a statewide police agency with the ability to investigate crimes.
Hawaiian sovereignty movement
While Hawaii is internationally recognized as a state of the United States while also being broadly accepted as such in mainstream understanding, the legality of this status has been questioned in U.S. District Court, the U.N., and other international forums. Domestically, the debate is a topic covered in the
Kamehameha Schools
Kamehameha Schools, formerly called Kamehameha Schools Bishop Estate (KSBE), is a private school system in Hawaii established by the Bernice Pauahi Bishop Estate, under the terms of the will of Princess Bernice Pauahi Bishop, who was a formal membe ...
curriculum, and in classes at the
University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa
The University of Hawaii at Mānoa (University of Hawaii—Mānoa, UH Mānoa, Hawai'i, or simply UH) is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Manoa, Mānoa, a neighborhood in Honolulu, Hawaii. It ...
.
Political organizations seeking some form of sovereignty for Hawaii have been active since the late 19th century. Generally, their focus is on
self-determination
The right of a people to self-determination is a cardinal principle in modern international law (commonly regarded as a ''jus cogens'' rule), binding, as such, on the United Nations as authoritative interpretation of the Charter's norms. It stat ...
and
self-governance
__NOTOC__
Self-governance, self-government, or self-rule is the ability of a person or group to exercise all necessary functions of regulation without intervention from an external authority. It may refer to personal conduct or to any form of ...
, either for Hawaii as an independent nation (in many proposals, for "Hawaiian nationals" descended from subjects of the Hawaiian Kingdom or declaring themselves as such by choice), or for people of whole or part
native Hawaiian
Native Hawaiians (also known as Indigenous Hawaiians, Kānaka Maoli, Aboriginal Hawaiians, First Hawaiians, or simply Hawaiians) ( haw, kānaka, , , and ), are the indigenous ethnic group of Polynesian people of the Hawaiian Islands.
Hawaii ...
ancestry in an indigenous "''nation to nation''" relationship akin to
tribal sovereignty
Tribal sovereignty in the United States is the concept of the inherent authority of indigenous tribes to govern themselves within the borders of the United States.
Originally, the U.S. federal government recognized American Indian trib ...
with
US federal recognition of Native Hawaiians
Native Hawaiians are the Indigenous peoples of Oceania, aboriginal people of the Hawaiian Islands. Since the involvement of the United States in the overthrow of the Kingdom of Hawaii, federal statutes have been enacted to address conditions of ...
. The pro-federal recognition
Akaka Bill
The Native Hawaiian Government Reorganization Act of 2009 S1011/HR2314 was a bill before the 111th Congress. It is commonly known as the Akaka Bill after Senator Daniel Akaka of Hawaii, who proposed various forms of this bill after 2000.
The bill ...
drew substantial opposition among Hawaiian residents in the 2000s. Opponents to the tribal approach argue it is not a legitimate path to Hawaiian nationhood; they also argue that the U.S. government should not be involved in re-establishing Hawaiian sovereignty.
The
Hawaiian sovereignty movement
The Hawaiian sovereignty movement ( haw, ke ea Hawaiʻi), is a grassroots political and cultural campaign to re-establish an autonomous or independent nation or kingdom of Hawaii due to desire for sovereignty, self-determination, and self-gove ...
views the
overthrow of the Kingdom of Hawaii
The overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom was a ''coup d'état'' against Queen Liliʻuokalani, which took place on January 17, 1893, on the island of Oahu and led by the Committee of Safety (Hawaii), Committee of Safety, composed of seven foreign ...
in 1893 as illegal, and views the subsequent annexation of Hawaii by the United States as illegal as well; the movement seeks some form of greater autonomy for Hawaii, such as free association or independence from the United States.
Some groups also advocate some form of redress from the United States for the 1893 overthrow of
Queen Liliuokalani
Queen or QUEEN may refer to:
Monarchy
* Queen regnant, a female monarch of a Kingdom
** List of queens regnant
* Queen consort, the wife of a reigning king
* Queen dowager, the widow of a king
* Queen mother, a queen dowager who is the mothe ...
, and for what is described as a prolonged
military occupation
Military occupation, also known as belligerent occupation or simply occupation, is the effective military control by a ruling power over a territory that is outside of that power's sovereign territory.Eyāl Benveniśtî. The international law ...
beginning with the 1898 annexation. The
Apology Resolution
United States Public Law 103-150, informally known as the Apology Resolution, is a Joint Resolution of the U.S. Congress adopted in 1993 that "acknowledges that the overthrow of the Kingdom of Hawaii occurred with the active participation of age ...
passed by US Congress in 1993 is cited as a major impetus by the movement for Hawaiian sovereignty. The sovereignty movement considers Hawaii to be an illegally occupied nation.
International sister relationships
*
Ehime
is a prefecture of Japan located on the island of Shikoku. Ehime Prefecture has a population of 1,342,011 (1 June 2019) and has a geographic area of 5,676 km2 (2,191 sq mi). Ehime Prefecture borders Kagawa Prefecture to the northeast, Tokush ...
, Japan
*
Fukuoka
is the sixth-largest city in Japan, the second-largest port city after Yokohama, and the capital city of Fukuoka Prefecture, Japan. The city is built along the shores of Hakata Bay, and has been a center of international commerce since ancie ...
, Japan
*
Hiroshima
is the capital of Hiroshima Prefecture in Japan. , the city had an estimated population of 1,199,391. The gross domestic product (GDP) in Greater Hiroshima, Hiroshima Urban Employment Area, was US$61.3 billion as of 2010. Kazumi Matsui h ...
, Japan
*
Hokkaido
is Japan's second largest island and comprises the largest and northernmost prefecture, making up its own region. The Tsugaru Strait separates Hokkaidō from Honshu; the two islands are connected by the undersea railway Seikan Tunnel.
The la ...
, Japan
*
Okinawa
is a prefecture of Japan. Okinawa Prefecture is the southernmost and westernmost prefecture of Japan, has a population of 1,457,162 (as of 2 February 2020) and a geographic area of 2,281 km2 (880 sq mi).
Naha is the capital and largest city ...
, Japan
*
Guangdong
Guangdong (, ), alternatively romanized as Canton or Kwangtung, is a coastal province in South China on the north shore of the South China Sea. The capital of the province is Guangzhou. With a population of 126.01 million (as of 2020) ...
,
China
China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...
*
Hainan
Hainan (, ; ) is the smallest and southernmost province of the People's Republic of China (PRC), consisting of various islands in the South China Sea. , the largest and most populous island in China,The island of Taiwan, which is slightly l ...
, China
* Jeju Province, Jeju, South Korea
* Taiwan
* Cebu Province, Cebu, Philippines
* Isabela Province, Isabela, Philippines
* Pangasinan Province, Pangasinan, Philippines
* Ilocos Sur Province, Ilocos Sur, Philippines
* Ilocos Norte Province, Ilocos Norte, Philippines
* Rabat-Salé-Zemmour-Zaër, Morocco
* Azores, Azores Islands, Portugal
* Bali Province, Bali, Indonesia
* Goa State, Goa, India
See also
* Index of Hawaii-related articles
* Outline of Hawaii
References
Informational notes
Citations
Bibliography
* Beechert, Edward D. ''Working in Hawaii: A Labor History'' (University of Hawaii Press, 1985).
*
* Kuykendall, Ralph S. ''A History of Hawaii'' (Macmillan, 1926 online
* Russ Jr., William Adam (1961) ''The Hawaiian Republic (1894–98) and Its Struggle to Win Annexation''. Selinsgrove, Pennsylvania: Susquehanna University Press.
* Schmitt, Robert C. ''Historical Statistics of Hawaii''. (University Press of Hawaii, 1977).
* Schmitt, Robert C. "Religious statistics of Hawaii, 1825-1972". '' Hawaiian Journal of History'' (1973), vol. 7, pp 41–47.
* Schmitt, Robert C. ''Demographic Statistics of Hawaii''. (University of Hawaii Press, 2021).
* Tabrah, Ruth M. ''Hawaii: a history'' (WW Norton & Company, 1984).
Guides
* Cooperm, Jeanne, and Natalie Schack. '' Frommer's Hawaii'' (2022 excerpt * Doughty, Andrew. ''Hawaii the Big Island Revealed: The Ultimate Guidebook'' (2021 excerpt
* FODOR. ''Fodor's Essential Hawaii'' (2020 excerpt
by ''The New York Times''
"Hawaii Then and Now" slideshow by ''Life (magazine), Life'' magazine (Archived fro the original on November 3, 2010)
*
From th Rare Book and Special Collections Division at the Library of Congress
{{coord, 21.5, N, 158.0, W, region:US-HI_type:adm1st, name=State of Hawai{{okinai, display=title
Hawaii,
1959 establishments in the United States
Geography of Polynesia
States and territories established in 1959
States of the United States
Western United States
Islands of Oceania
Articles containing video clips