1. By law, no building on Kauai is allowed to be built taller than a palm tree.

2. Hawaii is home to the endemic “Happy Face Spider,” whose abdomen bears a one-of-a-kind pattern resembling a smiling face.

3.  In the 1960s, astronauts trained for moon voyages by walking on Mauna Loa’s hardened lava fields, which resemble the surface of the moon.

4. Because of its continuous volcanic eruptions, Hawaii is the only state in the nation to have an increasing land area.

5. The State of Hawaii is the most isolated population center on the face of the earth. Hawaii is 2,390 miles from California; 3,850 miles from Japan; 4,900 miles from China; and 5,280 miles from the Philippines. Early in its history, seeds and plants were brought to the barren island by wind, water, and birds.
 

6. The popular T.V. series Lost is shot in Hawaii

7. The word Hawaii is from the Proto-Polynesian hawaiki, meaning “place of the gods” or “homeland.”

8. Hawaii is the only US state with a tropical rain forest

9. Hawaii’s nickname is the “Aloha State.” The word aloha is derived from the Proto-Polynesian, alofa, and its meanings include "love”, “compassion,” and “mercy.” Aloha is used both as “hello” and “goodbye.”

10. The Hawaiian archipelago spans the distance of 1,523 miles (2,451 km), making Hawaii the longest island chain in the world.

11. There is 104 waterfalls on Hawaii

12. The hula was originally a form of worship performed by highly trained men who were supposedly taught the dance by the Hawaiian god Luka.

13. The southernmost state in the United States is Hawaii.

14. Parts of the film Catching Fire were filmed at the North Shore of Oahu.

15. The average projected lifespan of those born in Hawaii in the year 2000 is 79.8 years (77.1 years if male; 82.5 if female), longer than the residents of any other state.

16. Captain Cook initially called Hawaii the “Sandwich Islands” after his English patron, the Earl of Sandwich. In 1819, King Kamehameha renamed the islands the Kingdom of Hawaii.

17. Hawaiians considered the shark (mano) a god and treated it with great respect.

18. The highest sea cliffs in the world are on Moloka’i.

19. Hawaii has lost more species and has more endangered species than any other state in the United States. Nearly all of the state’s native birds are in danger of becoming extinct.

21. Park rangers at Hawaii National Park receive packages every year from tourists who have taken volcanic rocks from Kilauea. The tourists claim that the rocks were bad luck from Pele, the goddess of fire, lightening, dance, volcanoes, and violence.

22. Hawaii shares the same general latitude of 20°N with cities and environments such as Hong Kong, Mecca, the Sahara Desert and Mexico City.

23. Hawaii produces about 320,000 tons of pineapple each year.

24. The Hawaiian alphabet consists of only twelve letters. The five vowels are A,E, I, O,U. And the seven consonants are H,K,L,M,N,P,W.

25. Among all U.S. states, Hawaii has the highest percentage of women in the workforce, about 63 percent as of 2003.

26. Hawaii has a unique way of giving directions. To point people in the right path, local residents use “makai,” which means toward to sea and “mauka,” meaning toward the mountains.

28. Kauai is the oldest of the main Hawaiian Islands. It’s over six million years old.

29. Kauai, also known as the “Garden Isle,” is famous for its jagged green mountains, white-sand beaches and tropical landscapes. More than 60 Hollywood movies have been filmed here, including Jurassic Park, Outbreak, Blue Hawaii and the TV shows Fantasy Island and Gilligan’s Island.

30. Kilauea Volcano on the Big Island is one of the largest and most active volcanoes in the world.

31. The coral reefs in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands make up about 70 percent of all the reefs in the United States. 

32. Most of the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands were discovered by accident. Some islands (Maro, Lisianski, Pearl and Hermes, French Frigate and Kure) were named after ships or captains of ships that grounded on the treacherous reefs that surround these islands.

33. The Northwestern Hawaiian Islands are home to more than 7,000 marine species, a quarter of which are found nowhere else in the world. One such marine species are the approximately 1,400 surviving Hawaiian monk seals, which is the entire population of this endangered species. The archipelago is also the breeding ground for 90 percent of the endangered Hawaiian green sea turtle. It is also home to an estimated 10 million birds, including three endemic species of land birds and 18 species of seabirds.