Native Hawaiians settled Hawaiʻi Island roughly a thousand years ago, and it became the seat of the chief who would unite the islands: Kamehameha I, born in the Kohala district, had brought the major islands together under the Hawaiian Kingdom by 1795. In 1793 Captain George Vancouver had given Kamehameha a gift of cattle, which were set loose and multiplied across the uplands — the start of the island's ranch country. The first American missionaries landed at Kailua-Kona in 1820, and through the nineteenth century the island took on coffee, sugar, and cattle alongside its Hawaiian traditions. It is the largest of the Hawaiian Islands and, geologically, the youngest — still being built by its volcanoes.
The Big Island keeps more landscapes than seem possible on one island. Snow can fall on Mauna Kea while the Kona coast bakes in sun; rain forest and waterfalls drape the Hilo side while lava fields stretch black and bare nearby; black-sand beaches at Punaluʻu and a green-sand beach at Papakōlea sit a coastline apart. Between them run the coffee uplands, the cattle country, and the long Saddle Road between the two great mountains. It is an island of two coasts and many worlds, with the map still being drawn at the volcano's edge.
Why People Visit the Big Island
People come to the Big Island for the volcanoes, the coffee, and the sheer range of it — snow and lava, ranch and reef, all on one island. Its towns of Hilo, Kona, and Waimea give it two coasts and a paniolo heartland, and the land itself is still being built at the volcano's edge.
