Spouting water
Wai is fresh water and kīkī is to spout or spurt. The name describes what the place was before it was drained: a wetland fed by springs and by three streams off the Koʻolau range, with fishponds and extensive taro terraces.
The Ala Wai Canal, dug through the 1920s, drained it. Everything that now stands in Waikīkī sits on what was marsh, which is why the district floods the way it does.
Before the hotels
Waikīkī was a residence of Oʻahu chiefs long before it was a resort, chosen for the same reasons visitors choose it now — a gentle reef break, a protected shore, and fresh water. Kamehameha I landed his invasion force here in 1795 before the battle at Nuʻuanu.
Duke Kahanamoku, who carried surfing from this beach to the world, grew up a few streets back from it.