Lahaina, Hawaii

Lahaina is a census-designated place (CDP) in Maui County, Hawaii, United States, and encompasses Lahaina town and the Kaanapali and Kapalua beach resorts. As of the 2020 census, Lahaina had a resident population of 12,702. The CDP spans the coast along Hawaii Route 30 from a tunnel at the south end, through Olowalu, and to the CDPs of Kaanapali and Napili-Honokowai to the north. In August 2023, a wildfire destroyed approximately 80% of Lahaina town. As of August 18, at least 114 deaths had been confirmed and more than 1,000 people were missing. Lahaina was originally called Lele in Hawaiian and was known for its breadfruit trees. Lele means jump or fly. Albert Pierce Taylor explains its relationship to the area as the; "flying piece of kuleana, that which sticks out from the sea". Missionaries sent by the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions began organizing a way to write the Hawaiian language with English letters soon after they reached Hawaii in 1822. "The long English sound of i is represented by ai, as in Lahaina, where the second syllable is accented, and pronounced like the English word high". According to Thrums Hawaiian Annual of 1921 the proper pronunciation of Lahaina is La-hai-ná. Lahaina has different pronunciations depending on how diacritical marks are applied. The old Hawaiian pronunciation of Lahaina is Lā-hainā. The phrase Lā hainā means "cruel or merciless sun", describing the sunny, dry climate. According to legend a bald aliʻi (chief) living in Kauaʻula Valley was walking without a hat and cursed at the hot sun: He keu hoi keia o ka lā hainā ("What an unmerciful sun"). Other interpretations of the name include "day (of) sacrifice" and "day (of) explanation". Inez MacPhee Ashdown (1899–1992), historian and founder of Maui Historical Society, believed the name was Lahaʻaina, meaning "land (of) prophesy", because of the number of kahuna nui (high priest) prophecies made there. The first mōʻī or aliʻi nui (supreme ruler) of western Maui was Haho, the son of Paumakua a huanuikalalailai.

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Lahaina, Hawaii

Hawaii

Hawaii (həˈwaɪi ; Hawaii həˈvɐjʔi, həˈwɐjʔi) is an island state in the Western United States, about from the U.S. mainland in the Pacific Ocean. It is the only U.S. state outside North America, the only state that is an archipelago, and the only state in the tropics. Hawaii consists of 137 volcanic islands that comprise almost the entire Hawaiian archipelago; spanning , the state is physiographically and ethnologically part of the Polynesian subregion of Oceania. Hawaii's ocean coastline is consequently the fourth-longest in the U.