The nineteenth and twentieth centuries reshaped the land. Sugar and pineapple plantations spread across the central valley and the slopes, drawing workers from around the Pacific and diverting West Maui's streams to irrigate the cane — a transformation that brought new communities and lasting costs. The Kingdom of Hawaiʻi was overthrown in 1893 and the islands annexed by the United States in 1898; Hawaiʻi became the fiftieth state in 1959. Through all of it Native Hawaiian culture endured on Maui, carried in language, place names, and the steady work of keeping tradition alive.
For a time Maui was the seat of that kingdom. Lahaina, on the island's west shore, served as the royal capital of the Kingdom of Hawaiʻi from about 1802 until 1845, when the seat of government moved to Honolulu. In those decades it was also one of the busiest whaling ports in the Pacific, where hundreds of ships wintered and a missionary community took root. Much of that historic town has since been lost, and Maui remembers Lahaina's royal and maritime past as a tender part of the island's story — the place where, for a generation, the Hawaiian kingdom kept its court.
Why People Visit Maui
Maui draws visitors for its landscape and its depth — a sacred volcanic summit, a rainforest coast road, a green valley behind the harbor towns, and the Pacific where humpbacks winter — all carried by a living Native Hawaiian culture. People come for Haleakalā, the Road to Hāna, and the beaches, and stay for the quiet of upcountry and the sense of a place with a long memory. It is scenic, storied, and unmistakably Hawaiian.
