Wikijunior:North America/United States/Hawaii

The location of Hawaii

The State of Hawaii is a state in the United States, located on an archipelago in the central Pacific Ocean southwest of the continental United States, southeast of Japan, and northeast of Australia. The state was admitted to the Union on August 21, 1959, making it the 50th state. Its capital is Honolulu on the island of Oahu. Hawaii is the only state of the United States that is not geographically located in North America, grows coffee, is completely surrounded by water, has a royal palace, does not have a straight line in its state boundary, or whose flag contains the Union Jack (the flag of Great Britain and Northern Ireland).

The Flag of Hawaii

Geography

Hawaii is a group of islands. The most southeasterly, which is also called Hawaii, is mountainous and volcanic. To the northwest of that is a chain of large islands, which are also mountainous, but are no longer volcanic; their volcanoes became extinct a long time ago. Still further to the northwest are some tiny, rocky islands, the last remnants of giant volcanoes. Finally, at the very end of the chain, there are some small, flat coral islands.