User:Ashley LovesPuppies

Maui, volcanic island, Maui county, Hawaii, U.S. It is separated from Molokai (northwest) by the Pailolo Channel, from Hawaii (southeast) by the Alenuihaha Channel, and from the small islands of Lanai and Kahoolawe (both to the west) by the Luau and Alalakeiki channels, respectively. With an area of 728 square miles (1,886 square km), the island is the second largest of the Hawaiian chain (after Hawaii island); it is also the second youngest of the Hawaiian Islands. Maui takes its name from a Polynesian demigod. It was created by two volcanoes, Pu'u Kukai and Haleakala, which constitute east and west peninsulas connected by a 7-mile- (11-km-) wide valley like isthmus that has earned Maui the nickname of the “valley isle.” The island was first settled by Polynesians c. ad 700. A 14th-century Hawaiian chief, Piilani, built the island’s largest stone temple, Piilanihale Heiau (still extant), and an extensive road system. In 1795 the island fell to Kamehameha I. In the early 1820s both whalers and missionaries began to arrive. Whaling began to decline in the 1860s as the sugar industry grew. About a century later, sugar was supplanted by tourism.