Explore Honolulu

Aliʻiōlani Hale, completed in 1874 opposite ʻIolani Palace, was the government building of the Kingdom of Hawaiʻi and now houses the Hawaiʻi Supreme Court. Inside, the King Kamehameha V Judiciary History Center explains the islands' legal history. In front stands the gilded statue of Kamehameha I by Thomas Gould, draped in flower lei on 11 June.

The National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific lies inside Punchbowl Crater, Puowaina, an extinct volcanic cone above downtown Honolulu. Opened in 1949, it is the resting place of service members of the Second World War, Korea and Vietnam. The Honolulu Memorial's Courts of the Missing list the names of those never found, among them 18,095 missing of the Second World War.

Diamond Head, Lēʻahi in Hawaiian, is a volcanic tuff cone on the southeast edge of Waikīkī, formed about 300,000 years ago. A trail built in 1908 for the Army's coastal defences climbs from the crater floor through a tunnel and up steep stairs to the summit bunkers, about 170 m higher, with views over Waikīkī and Honolulu. Entry is by reservation.

The Nuʻuanu Pali Lookout stands about 370 m up on the cliffs of the Koʻolau range, at the head of Nuʻuanu Valley some 8 km from downtown Honolulu. Below it spread the windward coast, Kāneʻohe and Kailua. In 1795 Kamehameha I's warriors drove Oʻahu's defenders over these cliffs, a decisive battle in the uniting of the islands. Winds here are often very strong.

The national memorial commemorates the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor of 7 December 1941, in which more than 2,400 Americans were killed. Its visitor center holds two museums on the road to war and the attack. A Navy boat takes visitors to the USS Arizona Memorial, built in 1962 over the sunken battleship where most of her crew still lie.

The Pacific Fleet Submarine Museum stands beside the Pearl Harbor Visitor Center. Its centrepiece is USS Bowfin, a Balao-class submarine launched on 7 December 1942, one year after the attack, which made nine war patrols in the Pacific. Visitors climb through the boat's compartments and see the museum's displays on a century of American submarines.

The battleship USS Missouri, launched in 1944, is moored as a museum ship on Ford Island in Pearl Harbor. Japan's formal surrender ending the Second World War was signed on her deck in Tokyo Bay on 2 September 1945. Visitors walk the decks, the surrender site and the crew's quarters; a shuttle runs from the Pearl Harbor Visitor Center.