Island of Hawaiʻi
The Big Island, youngest and largest in the Hawaiian chain
The Island of Hawaiʻi is still being built. Kīlauea, on its southeastern flank, has erupted in more than 50 spectacular lava-fountaining episodes since late December 2024, adding new rock to an island that already covers about 4,028 square miles (10,430 km²), roughly 63 percent of the state's land and more than all the other Hawaiian islands combined. Five shield volcanoes make up the Big Island. Kohala is extinct, Mauna Kea is dormant, and Hualālai, Mauna Loa and Kīlauea are active. Mauna Kea's summit, 13,803 feet (4,207 m) above sea level, rises more than 33,000 feet from its base on the sea floor.
Kamehameha I came from this island, and from here he unified the islands into the Kingdom of Hawaiʻi, which took its name from his homeland. Today about 200,600 people live here according to the 2020 census, centered on Hilo, the county seat on the rainy windward coast, and Kailua-Kona on the sunny leeward side. The island's climates range from windward rainforest to alpine desert, and its high, dark summits host some of the world's leading astronomical observatories. Coffee farms on the Kona slopes and ranches in the upland pastures of Waimea round out an economy built on more than tourism.
Hawaiʻi Volcanoes National Park protects Kīlauea and Mauna Loa, while Mauna Kea, sacred in Native Hawaiian tradition, remains at the center of debates over telescope construction. Off the southeast coast, the undersea volcano Kamaʻehuakanaloa, formerly called Lōʻihi, is slowly growing toward the surface and may one day become the next island in the chain, tens of thousands of years from now. Until then, the Big Island remains the youngest land in Hawaiʻi.