16 Things You Probably Didn’t Know About The State of Hawaii
By Megan Shute|Published July 21, 2015
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Megan Shute
Author
With more than 10 years of experience as a professional writer, Megan holds a degree in Mass Media from her home state of Minnesota. After college, she chose to trade in her winter boots for slippahs and moved to the beautiful island of Oahu, where she has been living for more than five years. She lives on the west side but is constantly taking mini-road trips across the island and visits the neighboring islands whenever she can getaway. She loves hiking, snorkeling, locally-grown coffee, and finding the best acai bowl on Oahu.
From geological abnormalities and an extremely diverse landscape to weird laws and statistics, Hawaii is quite the remarkable state.
1) One of the world’s largest volcanoes, Mauna Loa, located on the Big Island has been used for NASA training – astronauts would train for moon voyages by walking on lava fields.
3) Hawaii consists of eight populated islands, which comprise 99 percent of the state’s landmass. There are an additional 124 small, uninhabited islands, reefs and atolls that account for the other one percent.
10) Hawaii is considered the most isolated population center on earth, and is 2,390 miles away from the nearest continent (North America in case you couldn’t guess).
11) Though the Hawaiian macadamia nut is well-known, it is not actually native to Hawaii. It was imported from Australia in the 1880s, and didn’t become a harvest crop until the 1920s.
12) Thanks to Kilauea Volcano, which has been erupting for more than 30 years, the Big Island is actually getting bigger – by more than 42 acres each year.
13) Hawaii has the highest life expectancy in the United States – 75 for males, and 80 for females. Maybe this has to do with the fact that approximately 20 percent of Hawaii residents are overweight, compared with 30 percent on the mainland.
16) According to a Kauai law, no building on the island is allowed to be taller than a palm tree – a pretty subjective measurement system if you ask me.
own little known facts about Hawaii in the comments.