Big Island, Hawaii, USA

Hawaiʻi, is the largest island located within the U.S. state of Hawaii. It is the most important and therefore the southeastern-most of the Sandwich Islands, a chain of volcanic islands within the Pacific Ocean Ocean. With an space of four,028 square miles, it is larger than all of the opposite islands within the archipelago combined and is that the largest island within the us. The island of Hawaii is the third largest island in Polynesia, behind the two main islands of latest Seeland.

The island is often mentioned because the Island of Hawaiʻi, the Big Island, or Hawaiʻi Island to distinguish between the island and therefore the state. It is coterminous with Hawaiʻi County and includes the Hilo Micropolitan applied mathematics space.

As of the 2010 Census the population was 185,079. The county seat and largest city is Hilo. There are no incorporated cities in Hawaiʻi County.

History

Hawaiʻi is said to possess been named for Hawaiʻiloa, the legendary Polynesian navigator UN agency initial discovered it. Other accounts attribute the name to the legendary realm of Hawaiki, a place from which the Austronesian individuals square measure aforementioned to possess originated, the place where they go within the lifetime, the realm of the gods and goddesses. The name is cognate with Savaii, the name of the largest island of Samoa. Captain James Cook, the English explorer and navigator UN agency was the captain of the primary European expedition that discovered the Sandwich Islands, called them the "Sandwich Islands" when his patron, the Earl of Sandwich. Cook was killed on the Big Island at Kealakekua Bay on St Valentine's Day, 1779, in a mêlée which followed the felony of a cutter.

Hawaiʻi was the home island of Paiʻea Kamehameha, later known as Kamehameha the good. Kamehameha united most of the Hawaiian islands under his rule 1795, after many years of war, and gave the kingdom and therefore the island chain the name of his native island.