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.
That second life had a price. To drain the wetlands — officially against mosquitoes, in practice to turn marsh into buildable land — the territory dug the Ala Wai Canal between 1921 and 1928, diverting the very streams that had given Waikīkī its name. The taro patches and fishponds were filled, the Hawaiian families who farmed them displaced, and the spouting waters stilled. What rose in their place was the modern resort district the world now knows — built, quite literally, over the drained breadbasket of old Waikīkī.
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.
