By Tony Kawaguchi, REALTOR (RS-66616), The Kawaguchi Group, eXp Realty (RB-21841). Updated November 13, 2026.
If you're moving to Hawaii or buying a home here, it helps to know a little of the islands' history. It explains a lot about today's Hawaii: why some homes are leasehold, why neighborhoods carry Hawaiian place names, why Pearl Harbor matters, and why Hawaiian culture is so present in daily life. Here's a short, plain-English timeline, followed by a few facts every new resident should know.
Polynesian voyagers reached the Hawaiian Islands more than a thousand years ago, sailing double-hulled canoes thousands of miles across open ocean and navigating by stars, swells and birds. Scholars still debate the exact dates, and most trace the first settlers to the Marquesas and Society Islands. Over the centuries, Hawaiian society developed a system of chiefs (alii), priests and commoners, governed by kapu, a set of sacred laws and restrictions.
Land was divided into ahupuaa, sections that usually ran from the mountains down to the reef, so each community had access to forest, farmland, fresh water and the ocean. Many Oahu neighborhood and district names, like Waikiki, Manoa, Kaneohe and Waianae, come from these traditional land divisions. You'll see ahupuaa boundary signs along the highways today.
British Captain James Cook reached Kauai in January 1778 and named the chain the Sandwich Islands, after the Earl of Sandwich. He was killed at Kealakekua Bay on the island of Hawaii in February 1779. In the decades that followed, Kamehameha I unified the islands, winning Oahu at the Battle of Nuuanu in 1795. Kauai joined the kingdom by agreement in 1810. Kamehameha died in 1819.
That same year, his son Liholiho (Kamehameha II), with the powerful queens Kaahumanu and Keopuolani, ended the kapu system by eating publicly with women. The first American Protestant missionaries arrived in 1820. They developed a written alphabet for the Hawaiian language and started printing and teaching literacy, and many alii became Christian.
Under Kamehameha III, Hawaii adopted its first written constitution in 1840, and Honolulu became the capital in the 1840s. The Great Mahele of 1848 and the laws that followed created private land ownership for the first time. Land was divided among the crown, the government and the chiefs, and commoners could claim the plots they worked. A great deal of land ended up concentrated with large landowners and estates. That history is one reason some Hawaii homes and condos are still on leasehold land today.
Honolulu and Lahaina were busy whaling ports in the mid-1800s. As whaling declined, sugar took over. The first commercial sugar plantation opened at Koloa, Kauai, in 1835, and the Reciprocity Treaty with the United States, which took effect in 1876, let Hawaiian sugar enter the U.S. duty-free. Plantations recruited workers from China, Japan, Portugal, the Philippines and elsewhere, and that history shaped Hawaii's food, language and local culture.
King David Kalakaua reigned from 1874 to 1891. He completed Iolani Palace in Honolulu in 1882 and revived the hula and other Hawaiian traditions. In 1887, a group of businessmen and others forced him to sign what became known as the Bayonet Constitution, which sharply limited the monarch's power and restricted who could vote. His sister, Queen Liliuokalani, took the throne in 1891. She was overthrown on January 17, 1893, by a group backed by U.S. Marines from a visiting warship. In 1993, Congress formally apologized for the overthrow in Public Law 103-150.
A Republic of Hawaii, with Sanford B. Dole as president, was declared in 1894. The United States annexed Hawaii in 1898, and it became a U.S. territory in 1900. Pineapple joined sugar as a major crop after James Dole started his pineapple company in 1901.
The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, brought the U.S. into World War II, and Hawaii was under martial law for most of the war. The military has been a major part of Oahu's economy ever since. Today that includes Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam, Schofield Barracks and Marine Corps Base Hawaii, and many buyers move here on military orders.
President Eisenhower signed the Hawaii Admission Act on March 18, 1959. Island voters approved statehood that June, and Hawaii became the 50th state on August 21, 1959. Jet travel and statehood brought a tourism and construction boom. The 1978 state Constitutional Convention made Hawaiian an official state language and created the Office of Hawaiian Affairs. Since the 1970s, a Hawaiian cultural renaissance has brought back voyaging, hula, the Hawaiian language and traditional practices.
For more on daily life, read the best and worst of living in Hawaii, our Hawaii cost of living guide and the Hawaii relocation guide.
Sources: Hawaii State Archives; Iolani Palace; U.S. Library of Congress; U.S. National Archives (Hawaii Admission Act, 1959); Public Law 103-150 (1993); National Weather Service Honolulu climate data; Honolulu Board of REALTORS, October 2026 resale report.
Polynesian voyagers, who reached the islands by double-hulled canoe more than a thousand years ago. Most scholars trace them to the Marquesas and Society Islands, though the exact dates are still debated.
Captain James Cook reached Kauai in January 1778 and named the islands the Sandwich Islands. He was killed at Kealakekua Bay on the island of Hawaii in February 1779.
Kamehameha I. He won Oahu at the Battle of Nuuanu in 1795, and Kauai joined his kingdom by agreement in 1810.
Queen Liliuokalani was overthrown on January 17, 1893. A republic followed in 1894, the U.S. annexed Hawaii in 1898, and Congress formally apologized for the overthrow in 1993 in Public Law 103-150.
Hawaii became the 50th state on August 21, 1959, after President Eisenhower signed the Admission Act in March and island voters approved statehood in June.
Private land ownership began with the Great Mahele of 1848, and a lot of land ended up held by large landowners and estates that often leased it instead of selling. Some homes and condos still sit on leased land, so always check tenure before you buy.
An ahupuaa is a traditional Hawaiian land division that usually runs from the mountains to the sea. Many Oahu place names come from ahupuaa, and you'll see their boundary signs along the highways.
Questions about buying a home in Hawaii? Call (808) 201-3577.
Tony Kawaguchi, REALTOR (RS-66616), The Kawaguchi Group, eXp Realty (RB-21841).