Big Island of Hawaii
Big Island of Hawaii is the largest island located in the U.S. state of Hawaii. It is the largest and the southeasternmost of the Hawaiian Islands, a chain of volcanic islands in the North Pacific Ocean. With an area of 4,028 square miles (10,430 km2), it has 63% of the Hawaiian archipelago's combined landmass and is the largest island in the United States.
History
Hawaiʻi is said to have been named after Hawaiʻiloa, the legendary Polynesian navigator who first discovered it. Other accounts attribute the name to the legendary realm of Hawaiki, a place from which some Polynesian people are said to have originated, the place where they transition to in the afterlife, or the realm of the gods and goddesses. Captain James Cook, the English explorer, and navigator who was captain of the first European expedition that came upon the Hawaiian Islands, called it O-Why-hee (from Hawaiian) and the "Sandwich Islands" after his patron, the Earl of Sandwich. Cook was killed on the Big Island at Kealakekua Bay on 14 February 1779, in a mêlée which followed the theft of a ship's boat.
Hawaiʻi was the home island of Paiʻea Kamehameha, later known as Kamehameha the Great. Kamehameha united most of the Hawaiian islands under his rule in 1795, after several years of war, and gave the kingdom and the island chain the name of his native island. In 1822 the missionary William Ellis arrived and was one of a party that completed a tour of the island, descriptions of which were later published in his journal.