From Oʻahu the Hawaiian Kingdom grew. Honolulu, with the only sheltered deep-water harbor for miles, became the capital around 1850 and the hub of the islands' trade — sandalwood, then whaling fleets, then sugar and pineapple — drawing missionaries and merchants and, to the plantations, waves of immigrant labor from Japan, Okinawa, Portugal, China and the Philippines. The monarchy raised ʻIolani Palace there in 1882 — the only royal palace on American soil, lit by electricity before the White House — and ruled from its halls. Around it stood the Kingdom's Honolulu: Kawaiahaʻo Church of 1842, the "Westminster Abbey of Hawaiʻi," and the gilded statue of Kamehameha that still faces the old courthouse. This was the heart of a sovereign Hawaiian nation.
The island also gave the world something joyful. At Waikākā, in the early twentieth century, the ancient Hawaiian art of heʻe nalu — wave-sliding — was carried into the modern age, above all by Duke Kahanamoku, Waikākā's Olympic swimmer and the father of modern surfing. Duke won Olympic gold in 1912 and 1920, and spent his life giving surfing demonstrations from California to Australia, becoming Hawaiʻi's great ambassador of aloha. On the North Shore, the open Pacific delivers the biggest rideable waves on earth along a famous seven-mile stretch, and winter names like Pipeline, Waimea and Sunset became the proving ground of big-wave surfing. From these shores the sport spread around the world — Oʻahu is where surfing, ancient and modern, belongs.
Why People Visit Oʻahu
Oʻahu offers the whole of Hawaiʻi in one place: deep history and living culture, world-famous surf, a great multicultural city, and beaches for every mood. It is where most visitors begin — and, for the million people who live here, simply home, the island where Hawaiʻi gathers.
