Honolulu  city, capital of the state of Hawaii and seat of Honolulu on the southeast coast of the island of Oahu . The city and county are legally coextensive, and both are governed by the same mayor and council. With steamship and air connections to the U.S. mainland, Asia, Australia, and New Zealand, Honolulu is the crossroads of the Pacific, as well as the economic center and principal port of the Hawaiian Islands. The city is famous for its beauty and the variety of its ethnic groups. It lies on a narrow plain between the sea and the Koolau Range and climbs the slopes of Punchbowl.    

Bypassed by Capt. James Cook when he explored the islands in 1778, Honolulu's harbor was entered in 1794 by William Brown, an English captain. Honolulu's history from 1820, when missionaries arrived on the islands, is much the same as that of Hawaii. Growing from a settlement of mud huts into the main residence of Hawaiian royalty and later of foreign consuls, Honolulu became the permanent capital of the kingdom of Hawaii in 1845. In the 19th cent., American and European whalers and sandalwood traders visited its port, and Honolulu was occupied successively by Russian, British, and French forces.
 

  Hawaii
       guide, hotels

It remained Hawaii's capital when the islands were annexed by the United States in 1898 and achieved statehood in 1959. The Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor , the naval base at Honolulu, on Dec. 7, 1941, and during World War II the port became a strategic naval base and a staging area for U.S. forces in the Pacific.

Since the war, a rise in tourism, diversification of industry, and construction of luxury hotels and housing developments have made Honolulu the business and population center of Hawaii. Increased peacetime defense activity at the many military installations in the area (Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard, Schofield
Barracks, and Camp H. M. Smith, headquarters of the U.S. Pacific Command), expansion of harbor facilities, and the completion of an international airport further aided the city's growth. Honolulu's other industries include jewelry, printing and publishing, clothing, food and beverages, rubber products, construction materials, and electronics and computer equipment. Major redevelopment of the Honolulu Harbor area was undertaken in the 1990s.

Hawaii
   guide, hotels

  Honolulu, Capital

  The city
Honolulu brief history
 Arrival
 Travel info
 Getting around
Restaurants
Nightlife
Ocean safety
Surfing, windsurfing,
     diving, snorkeling
 Best of Honolulu
Whether
Rainfall & storms

Surfing conditions
Mountains and volcanoes

Explore Honolulu
Bishop Museum
Chinatown
Diamond Head volcano
Hanauma Bay
Pearl Harbor Memorial
Nat'l Cemetery of the Pacific

  Waikiki beach
   Maui
   Kapalua

  Hawaii
  Hawaii Volcanoes        
     National Park
  Pearl Harbor brief
     history
  Kapiolani Park
  Hawaiian Island

Google maps