Location: Hawaii

Kauai

Hawaii

Hawaii's "garden island" more than lives up to its name. Two exceptional tropical botanical gardens – at Lawai, on the South Shore, and near Kee Beach on the North Shore – only set the stage for what many Hawaiians consider the most beautiful of their islands. From the soaring sea cliffs of the spectacular Na Pali Coast to the orange-and-black palisades of Waimea Canyon (often called the “Grand Canyon of the Pacific”) and the divergent beauty of nearly 70 white-sand beaches, Kauai is full of natural wonders.

It looks good on camera, too. More than 50 films have been shot here – Elvis's Blue Hawaii, and Spielberg's Jurassic Park among them – but it was South Pacific, for which Kauai served as the legendary “Bali Ha'i,” that made the most of the island's photogenic setting. Even today you can be playing a round of golf at the Prince Course in Princeville, sitting on a surfboard at Hanalei Bay, or walking on Haena Beach and look up to see that incredible landscape, just as it was in the movie.

With its unsurpassed hiking and kayaking, Kauai may also be the Hawaiian island best geared to the adventurous traveler. But at the end of the day, even the most active visitor finds moments when the pace of life slows – and Bali Ha'i calls.

Kauai Highlights
Explore the many wonders of this 'Land of beginnings'

While Kauai's reputation as home to the wettest spot on Earth — Mount Wai'ale'ale, averaging 485 inches of rain per year — has lead to its popular designation as "The Garden Isle," the island has another, older name: "The Separate Kingdom."

History
In part this is because Kauai may have been the first of the Hawaiian Islands to be settled by Marquesan seafarers, somewhere around 750 A.D. Combined with its remoteness from the rest of the island chain, this may also have led to the belief that Kauai's royal bloodline was the purest in the Islands. Kauai was also the only island in the chain to withstand the army of Kamehameha the Great as he swept through the rest of the archipelago in the late 1700s, on his quest to unify Hawaii under one king. (Kamehameha would eventually have his way, however, when Kauai's chief Kaumuali'i peacefully ceded authority over his island to the king in 1810.)

Point of "Discovery"
Kauai was the first Hawaiian Island English explorer Capt. James Cook stumbled upon in 1778, while sailing from Tahiti toward North America. While it has long been believed that Cook was the first European to set foot in the Islands — he first did so at Waimea, on Kauai's southwest coast — recent evidence has some historians claiming that Spanish sailors may have visited the Islands more than a century earlier.

Kauai was the first Hawaiian Island English explorer Capt. James Cook stumbled upon in 1778, while sailing from Tahiti toward North America. While it has long been believed that Cook was the first European to set foot in the Islands — he first did so at Waimea, on Kauai's southwest coast — recent evidence has some historians claiming that Spanish sailors may have visited the Islands more than a century earlier.

Geography
The oldest of the main Hawaiian Islands, it is believed the volcano that created Kauai first began erupting some 10 million years ago. Once rising more than 10,000 feet above sea level, Olokele Volcano has since eroded down to two main peaks — Wai'ale'ale (5,148 feet) and Kawaikini (5,243 feet) — with the rest of the mountain sinking to form the crater that is home to Alaka'i Swamp. Alaka'i Swamp is the largest high-elevation swamp in the world and the starting point for Waimea River, the longest river in the Islands. The 3,000-foot-deep Waimea Canyon, dubbed "The Grand Canyon of the Pacific," is also the product of these erosive forces.

Kauai's age has also led to something of a geographic anomaly: Although it is one of the smallest of the main Hawaiian Islands, the forces of nature have had more time to break the island down and produce more sand beach around its 110-mile coastline than any other island in the chain. Meanwhile, it remains the least populated of Hawaii's four counties (with roughly 56,000 permanent residents), and both development and tourism have been concentrated in relatively few locations. All of which furthers the sense that Kauai is, in fact, a separate kingdom.

What's More ...
• The average temperature at Lihu'e Airport ranges between 70 and 80 degrees Fahrenheit year round.

• Wai'ale'ale is aptly named — the word translates as "rippling or overflowing water."

• Kauai plays host to several major events each year, including the Waimea Town Celebration in February; the Prince Albert Music Festival in June; the Kauai Mokihana Festival in September; and Koke'e Museum's Emalani Festival in October.

• Kauai's official flower is the mokihana (green berry)

• The island's official color is purple

BIOLOGY Kauai has a wide variety of plant, marine and animal life. Many species are rare and endangered including the Nene Goose (the official state bird) and Hawaii's only freshwater fish, the oopu. Vegetation zones include: coastal, dryland forest, mixed open forest, rain forest.

CLIMATE Like most of the Hawaiian Islands, Kauai has only two seasons: "summer" between May and October and "winter" between October and April. Depending upon locale:

Average temperature ranges from 71.3 (°F) to 79.1 (°F) at Lihue airport.
Average annual rainfall ranges from 35 inches at Poipu Beach to 444 inches at the summit of Waialeale (one of the wettest spots in the United States).

CULTURAL HISTORY Kauai is a multi-cultural society with major immigration from:

Polynesia - 700 A.D.
United States - 1820
China - 1852
Japan - 1868
Portugal - 1878
Puerto Rico - 1900
Korea - 1903
Philippines - 1906

ECONOMY Healthy In 2006! Key indicators are positive for continuing growth in the second half of this decade. However, Hawaii's cost of living is among the highest in the nation and its 2004 per capita personal income below average. In fact, sources indicate a cost of living ranging from 30% above the national average to over 60% depending upon family size and circumstances.

2005 Visitor Arrivals to the State totaled 7.4 million (a record)

2005 Gross State Product was $54 billion

Major contributions to the State of Hawaii's economy include:

Visitor Expenditures: $11.8 billion (2005) - an all-time high*
Federal Defense Spending: $4.8 billion (2003)
Construction (Private Building Permits): $3.5 billion (2005)

* Visitor Expenditure figures are deceptive, since a certain percentage of tourism dollars do not remain in the Islands, but are returned to overseas investors.

With the demise of its sugar and pineapple industries in the 1990's, Hawaii is working to diversify its economy with a focus on industries such as science and technology, health and wellness tourism, diversified agriculture, ocean research and development, and film and television production. A Study currently being conducted by the State is looking at the extent to which the benefits from tourism can be maintained, while sustaining the quality of our social, economic and environmental assets.

EDUCATION Kauai :

K-12 students in public schools (2004): 9,927 (excluding Special & Charter Schools)
Number of Public schools (2005): 19
Number of Private schools (2005): 7

In 2004, there were 1,117 students enrolled at the Kauai Community College, part of the University of Hawaii system.

GEOGRAPHY Kauai County includes the islands of Kauai, Niihau, and uninhabited Lehua and Kaula. The Island of Kauai has an area of approximately 552.3 square miles with 90 miles of coastline.

Kauai is:

located in Polynesia
near the center of the Pacific Ocean
just below the Tropic of Cancer
one of the most remote spots on Earth
2,500 miles west of California

GEOLOGY    Exotic Kauai (the oldest of Hawaii's major islands) was formed 5 million years ago from a single shield volcano that has become deeply eroded with time and volcanic action - producing both the Grand Canyon of the Pacific (Waimea) and the stunning sea cliffs along the Na Pali coast.

GOVERNMENT   On Kauai, as throughout the State, there are no separate municipal governments. The County of Kauai is responsible for local government on Kauai and has a mayor elected for up to two four-year terms and a seven member council with two-year terms. Kauai's county seat is located in Lihue.

HEALTH     Practices (2004): 137 doctors, 36 dentists, 474 nurses and 47 pharmacists.

OFFICIAL COLOR AND FLOWER    The official color is purple and the official flower is the mokihana.

POPULATION    Kauai:

had a resident population of 61,929 in 2004
is the least populous of the major islands

In 2003, Kauai's ethnic groups roughly broke down as follows:

    Unmixed (except Hawaiian): 36,821: (61.4%)
  Caucasian - 19,133 (31.9%)
  Japanese - 7,028 (11.7%)
  Filipino - 9,915 (16.5%)
  Chinese - 452 (0.8%)
  Black - No data (sample size too small)
  Korean - No data (sample size too small)
  Samoan/Tongan - 146 (0.2%)
Mixed (except Hawaiian) - 9,596 (16.0%)
Hawaiian/Part Hawaiian - 13,532 (22.6%)

TOURISM    Kauai had approximately 1.1 million visitors in 2005.The island is fully recovered from the ravages of 1992's hurricane Iniki.

http://www.islands.com

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Kauai

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