Sandwich Islands

Not to be confused with South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands or Manuae (Cook Islands).

Kauai, Hawaii

The Sandwich Islands is Captain James Cook's name for the Hawaiian Islands in 1778. He chose the name of his patron, the 4th Earl of Sandwich.

The name Hawaii is the Polynesian name of the islands. The first known inhabitants of Hawaii were from Polynesia in the first 1,000 years AD.

Sandwich Islands Media

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  Hawaiian Islands from space.

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  3-D perspective view of the southeastern Hawaiian Islands, with the white summits of Mauna Loa (4,170 m or 13,680 ft high) and Mauna Kea (4,207.3 m or 13,803 ft high). The islands are the tops of massive volcanoes, the bulk of which lie below the sea surface.

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  A composite satellite image from NASA of the Hawaiian Islands taken from outer space. Click on the image for a larger view that shows the main islands and the extended archipelago.

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  Eruptions from the Hawaii hotspot left a trail of underwater mountains across the Pacific over millions of years, called the Emperor Seamounts.

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  Aftermath of the 1960 Chilean tsunami in Hilo, Hawaiʻi, where the tsunami left 61 people dead and 282 seriously injured. The waves reached 35 feet (11 m) high.

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  Lava erupting from Kīlauea, one of six active volcanoes in the Hawaiian islands. Kīlauea is the most active, erupting nearly continuously from 1983 to 2018.

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  'I'iwi (Drepanis coccinea) and other endemic species have been heavily impacted by human activity, such as invasive species and habitat loss.