Hawaii’s Population and Geography Extremes

Seventy percent of Hawaii’s entire population is crammed onto one single island that makes

up less than ten percent of the land. It sounds crazy, but almost everyone lives on Oahu because

it is actually flat enough to build cities like Honolulu without worrying about lava.

Meanwhile, the Big Island is massive but stays empty because active volcanoes make building

houses a total nightmare. The geography is so intense that you get snow-capped mountains and tropical

rainforests just miles apart. It gets even wilder on Kauai, where zoning laws

literally forbid building anything taller than a coconut tree.