HIHawaii Fun Facts

Hawaii is the only state that is physically still getting bigger. Kilauea's 2018 eruption in lower Puna filled Kapoho Bay and added more than 800 acres of brand new land to the island of Hawaii. Almost everything else about the state breaks a rule too, from its alphabet to its clocks to its highway numbering.

Facts most people get wrong

• Hawaii is not in the South Pacific. Every island sits north of the equator, at roughly the latitude of Mexico City, which is why the seasons run the same direction as the mainland.
• The Big Island is not a nickname for the state. That island is officially named Hawaii, and residents say Big Island precisely because the two names collide on every form and map.
• Pearl Harbor did not lead directly to statehood. Hawaii was annexed as a territory in 1898 and did not join the Union until August 21, 1959, eighteen years after the attack.
• Pineapple is not native. It came from South America, and the industry was built by James Dole, who founded the Hawaiian Pineapple Company in 1901. Large scale canning has since moved offshore.
• Hawaii does not change its clocks. The state has skipped daylight saving since 1967, so it runs two hours behind the West Coast in winter and three hours behind in summer.
• Aloha is not just a greeting. The Aloha Spirit is written into state law, which directs officials to consider it while carrying out their duties.

Records and firsts

• Hawaii was the 50th state, admitted on August 21, 1959. No state has been added since.
• Mauna Kea rises 13,796 feet above sea level, but measured from its base on the ocean floor it stands about 33,500 feet, taller than Everest from bottom to top.
• Hawaii is the only state with two official languages. Hawaiian was made co-official with English at the 1978 constitutional convention.
• Iolani Palace in Honolulu, finished in 1882, is the only royal palace on American soil, and it had electric light in 1887, before the White House did.
• Coffee has grown in the Kona district since the 1820s, making Hawaii the one state with a continuous commercial coffee industry.
• Barack Obama, born in Honolulu in 1961, is the only president born outside the mainland United States.

Geography that surprises

• Ka Lae, on the southern tip of the island of Hawaii, is the southernmost point in the United States, farther south than Key West.
• The archipelago runs about 1,500 miles northwest to Kure Atoll, so most of the state by length is uninhabited reef, atoll and seabird colony rather than resort coastline.
• Hawaii has its own time zone, Hawaii Aleutian, shared only with the far western end of Alaska.
• The Pacific Plate carries the islands northwest a few inches a year, and a new volcano, Kamaehuakanaloa, is already growing underwater southeast of the Big Island.
• There is no land connection to any other state, yet Hawaii has federally funded Interstate highways. They are numbered H-1, H-2, H-3 and H-201, all of them on Oahu.

Where the name comes from

Hawaii takes its name from its largest island. Hawaiian tradition credits Hawaiiloa, the navigator said to have found the islands, while linguists connect the word to Hawaiki, the ancestral homeland named across Polynesia from Samoa to New Zealand.

In Hawaiian the word carries an okina, the glottal stop that also appears in Oahu and Kauai. The okina is a full letter in an alphabet of five vowels and seven consonants, one of the shortest alphabets in active use. Official English spelling drops it, which is why the same place name shows up two ways on road signs.

Quick stats

• Population: 1 to 5 million
• Area rank: #43 of 50
• Admitted: 1959
• Capital: Honolulu
• Largest city: Honolulu
• Time zone: Hawaii Aleutian
• Nickname: Aloha State
• State bird: Nene

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