Honolulu

The name Honolulu means sheltered harbour, and the harbour made the city. In November 1794 the British captain William Brown became the first foreigner to sail into it. In May 1795 Kamehameha I conquered Oʻahu at the Battle of Nuʻuanu, and Waikīkī served as the first capital of his kingdom from 1795 to 1796; he moved his court there again in 1804 and in 1810 chose Honolulu as his residence, before returning to Kailua-Kona in 1812. Trading ships and whalers turned the harbour village into a town.

In 1845 Kamehameha III moved the permanent capital from Lahaina on Maui to Honolulu, and he and the monarchs who followed built a modern capital with St. Andrew's Cathedral, Aliʻiōlani Hale and ʻIolani Palace, completed in 1882 for King Kalākaua. In 1893 the monarchy was overthrown, and after a failed rising in 1895 Queen Liliʻuokalani was imprisoned for nine months in a room of her own palace. The United States annexed the islands in 1898, and Honolulu remained the capital of the territory; a large fire swept the city in 1900.

On 7 December 1941 the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, just west of the city, killed more than 2,400 Americans and brought the United States into the Second World War, and the harbour remains a major naval base. Statehood in 1959 brought an economic and tourism boom: Honolulu filled with high-rise buildings, and Waikīkī became the centre of Hawaii's tourist industry. In 2023 the first stretch of the Skyline rail line opened west of the city, and in October 2025 it was extended past Pearl Harbor and the airport to Middle Street in Kalihi.

Honolulu is a city of many heritages, where Asian Americans make up just over half the population and Asian, Native Hawaiian, Pacific Islander and European roots meet in families, food and speech. Hawaiian words and Pidgin are part of everyday conversation, and the language is still heard at Kawaiahaʻo Church, where parts of the service are in Hawaiian. The royal past is close at hand: the palace, the statue of Kamehameha I, honoured with a floral parade on King Kamehameha Day in June, and the Royal Hawaiian Band, the oldest municipal band in the United States.

The Bishop Museum, founded in 1889, holds the world's largest collection of Polynesian cultural artefacts, and the Honolulu Museum of Art has one of the largest collections of Asian and Pan-Pacific art in the country. The Honolulu Symphony dates from 1900, Kumu Kahua Theatre and Diamond Head Theatre stage local and touring plays, and the Hawaiʻi International Film Festival each autumn showcases Asian-Pacific film.

Surfing, once known only in Hawaii, was popularised around the world by the competition swimmer Duke Kahanamoku, who grew up on the outskirts of Waikīkī, and the surf breaks off the beach are still busy from dawn. The Honolulu Marathon, open to all, draws around 20,000 finishers in December, many of them from Japan. Lei, hula and slack-key guitar are part of ordinary celebrations as well as performances for visitors.

The 2020 census counted 350,964 people in Honolulu, and an estimate put the figure at 341,868 in 2025; the metropolitan area, which covers the whole of Oʻahu, had just over a million people in 2020. Tourism brings millions of visitors and about $10 billion a year, and military defence, research and manufacturing are other important parts of the economy. The cost of living is much higher than on the mainland, rents are among the highest in the United States, and many residents have left for the mainland.

The neighbourhoods range from the upper-class districts of Kāhala and Waiʻalae east of Diamond Head to the working-class areas of Kalihi and Pālama, with their public housing, and the university valley of Mānoa. Kakaʻako, a former warehouse district, has filled with apartment towers in recent years. Many people commute from the suburbs to the west, and congestion on the main highways is the problem the Skyline rail line was built to ease.

Daily life is lived outdoors and early: surfers and swimmers at dawn, joggers in Kapiʻolani Park and Ala Moana, family picnics at beach parks at weekends. Current issues include the cost of living, drought and water shortages, and flooding from rising seas.

Honolulu eats from every community that has settled in the islands. The plate lunch — one or two scoops of rice, macaroni salad and a main such as teriyaki beef or chicken katsu — is the everyday meal, sold from lunch counters and food trucks. Poke, rough-cut raw fish traditionally seasoned with seaweed, kukui nut and sea salt, is a local favourite. Spam musubi, a slice of fried Spam on rice wrapped in seaweed, is eaten as a snack, and saimin, a noodle soup, has long been sold in neighbourhood saimin houses.

Hawaiian food — kalua pig roasted in an underground oven, laulau of pork wrapped in taro leaves, lomi salmon, poi of pounded taro and haupia coconut pudding — is served at Hawaiian restaurants such as Helena's and at luau. Chinatown has dim sum, noodle shops and manapua, steamed buns filled with barbecued pork, and Japanese, Korean, Filipino and Vietnamese restaurants are spread across the city.

The malasada, a holeless Portuguese doughnut rolled in sugar, was brought to a wider audience by Leonard's Bakery, which opened in 1952. Shave ice, a block of ice shaved fine and flavoured with syrups, is the classic cooling sweet, and macadamia nuts and tropical fruit appear in shops and markets across the city.