Kailua-Kona

Kailua was chosen by Kamehameha I as his seat of government while he was chief of Kona, before he brought the islands under one rule. After unification it served as a capital of the Hawaiian Kingdom, and Kamehameha spent the last years of his life, from 1810 to 1819, at Kamakahonu on the north side of Kailua Bay, beside his temple, ʻAhuʻena Heiau. His son Liholiho, Kamehameha II, lived there too, and in December 1819 an army marched from Kamakahonu to put down the rebellion of Kekuaokalani in the Battle of Kuamoʻo, a few miles to the south.

On 4 April 1820, within a year of the king's death, the first American missionaries landed here from the brig Thaddeus. Asa and Lucy Thurston founded the congregation of Mokuʻaikaua, and its stone church, finished in 1837, still stands across the road from Huliheʻe Palace, the house Governor Kuakini built for entertaining. The capital moved to Lāhainā and then Honolulu, and Kailua became a retreat for the royal family: Princess Ruth Keʻelikōlani made Huliheʻe her chief home and invited every reigning monarch to stay, and King Kalākaua had it plastered in 1885.

Until the late 1800s Kailua-Kona was mainly a small fishing village, and cattle were shipped from its pier until 1966. The airport opened in 1970, and the late 20th and early 21st centuries brought a real estate and construction boom. The 2006 Kīholo Bay earthquake, centred off the coast to the north, cracked Huliheʻe's walls.

Kona's identity rests on the sea, on coffee and on its royal past. Aliʻi Drive is designated a Hawaii Scenic Byway, "Royal Footsteps Along the Kona Coast", for the Hawaiian sites along it, and Huliheʻe Palace is run by the Daughters of Hawaiʻi, who restored it in 1927. Puʻuhonua o Hōnaunau to the south is one of only four places in Hawaii where the Hawaiian flag may officially fly alone.

Coffee has been grown on the slopes of Hualālai and Mauna Loa for generations — the Kona Coffee Living History Farm, founded in 1900, recalls the Japanese immigrant families who worked such farms between 1920 and 1945 — and the Kona Coffee Cultural Festival each November, founded in 1970, is one of the oldest food festivals in Hawaii. Sport fishing is another passion: the Hawaiian International Billfish Tournament is held here, and Honokōhau Harbor keeps much of the island's charter fleet.

Sport has made the town famous worldwide. The Ironman World Championship has started and finished here since 1981, with a 2.4-mile swim in Kailua Bay, 112 miles of cycling across the lava fields to Hāwī and back, and a marathon finishing on Aliʻi Drive. From 2023 to 2025 the men's and women's races were held in different places, alternating with Nice in France; from 2026 both return to Kona. In the water, night snorkels and dives with feeding manta rays are among the town's best-known experiences.

The Kailua census-designated place had 19,713 people at the 2020 census, up from about 12,000 in 2010, although the Census Bureau redrew its boundaries in between. It is the second-largest settlement on the island after Hilo and the commercial and tourist centre of the west side.

The economy depends on tourism, construction and services. It fell with the 2008 financial crisis and grew strongly in the 2010s, when visitor air arrivals rose by about 160 per cent between 2010 and 2017. A campus of Hawaii Community College opened at Pālamanui in 2015, and the University of the Nations, a missionary training centre, is in the town. Daily news comes from West Hawaii Today.

Life follows a coastal rhythm: clear mornings for fishing, paddling and swimming, cloud building over the mountain in the afternoon, and sunsets watched from the seawall. From the early 2000s the town often lived under vog from Kīlauea; when the volcano largely stopped its emissions in May 2018 the air became the clearest it had been in decades, though vog can still settle over the coast depending on the volcano's activity and the winds.

Kona coffee is the local product: the market name for Coffea arabica grown on the slopes of Hualālai and Mauna Loa in the North and South Kona districts, where sunny mornings, afternoon cloud, little wind and porous volcanic soil suit the crop. It is one of the most expensive coffees in the world, only coffee from the Kona districts may carry the name, and buyers look for "100 per cent Kona" rather than blends. Farms in the hills offer tours and tastings.

The sea supplies the rest. Kona is the hub of charter fishing on the Big Island, and its catch ends up as poke — diced raw fish tossed in a sauce — sold in bowls at counters around town, and as grilled fish on restaurant menus along Aliʻi Drive. Plate lunches of rice, macaroni salad and teriyaki or kalua pork are the everyday meal, as everywhere in the islands.

Macadamia nuts, often covered in chocolate, are a favourite thing to take home. Along Aliʻi Drive, seafront bars and restaurants, taco counters and sushi bars fill at sunset, and a local brewpub serves its own beer.