About Big Island of Hawaii
"If you've ever had a cup of Kona coffee, you've tasted the Big Island. Robust, fortifying, indulgent, luxurious, warm, fragrant, complex, comforting. Once you've taken it in, your concept of coffee changes. Your expectations are greater, your tastes are more experienced and your life is a little richer." Paradise Family Guide
Of the hundreds of islands in the 1,500-mile Hawaiian Island chain, Hawaii, "the Big Island," is by far the biggest and most diverse. Larger than all the main islands-Oahu, Maui, Kauai, Molokai, Lānai, Kahoolawe and Niihau--put together, the Big Island covers more than 4,000 square miles and contains the sunniest spot in Hawaii, the rainiest and southernmost cities in the US and the tallest mountain in the world, Mauna Kea, 33,000 feet from the ocean floor to its summit. Geologically, the Island of Hawaii is the also youngest and is still growing, as the ongoing eruption of Kīlauea volcano continues to create new land.
Most of the earth's climate zones are represented on the Big Island, from arid coastal and desert areas, to lush old-growth rainforests and alpine mountain slopes, presenting a wondrous diversity of landscape and experience.
According to some legends, Hawaii was named after Hawaiiloa, the mythical canoe navigator who first discovered the Islands. Other accounts attribute the name to the realm of Hawaiiki, the symbolic place from which the Polynesians originated, and where they go in the afterlife -- which is what we knew all along: It's a slice of Paradise.
