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That name tells you what this place once was. Waikīkī, “spouting water,” was named for the springs and streams that gushed from the Koʻolau valleys — Makiki, Mānoa, and Pālolo — and spread across a broad coastal plain. The old ahupuaʻa, or land division, of Waikīkī was vast, reaching from Kou, the future Honolulu, toward Maunalua at the island's east end. Where high-rises now stand was once some two thousand acres of marsh and wetland, fed by mountain water and framed, then as now, by the crater of Lēʻahi — Diamond Head — at the end of the beach.
The resort era grew out of that royal ground. In the 1880s King Kalākaua cut the first real road to Waikīkī, opening it to recreation; by 1893 the little Sans Souci had become one of Hawaiʻi's first beach resorts, and Robert Louis Stevenson lingered there. The Moana Hotel — the “First Lady of Waikīkī” — opened in 1901, and in 1927 the Matson Line raised the Royal Hawaiian, the Pink Palace itself, on the Helumoa grove. Elegant ships carried mainland visitors to its doors, and Waikīkī began its second life as the most famous beach in the Pacific.
Why People Visit Waikīkī
Waikīkī offers a whole world in two miles of sand: the birthplace of modern surfing, royal history beneath the hotels, Diamond Head at the end of the beach, and the easy warmth of Hawaiian hospitality. It is the most famous beach in the Pacific — and for the surfers, paddlers, and families who live and gather here, simply home.
