I’d be interested in buying prints
Handmade Hawaiian Islands Map
21–30 of 35 posts
Re: Handmade Hawaiian Islands Map
#22One of those islands, Lānaʻi, is 98% owned by Larry Ellison
Ni'ihau is also privately owned, and Kauai is also home to a few gigantic personal properties.
while Ni'ihau is privately owned, wikipedia says it is occupied by native Hawaiians who speak only Hawaiian, the only island unsullied by English.
Re: Handmade Hawaiian Islands Map
#23Earlier quoted context omitted.
I expected a mostly privately owned island to be much smaller than that.
It is so massive he has to make affordances Epstein never had to. You can visit Lanai today for example. I took a day trip there a couple years ago. Saw the cat sanctuary. Not much else to do there. There is a little holdover company town inland from the Dole days but I didn't visit that. I'm not sure how much time Ellison even spends there. I get the sense that having these some 3k common folk holdout residents plus…
The size of the land isn’t inherently why those concessions were made.
Hawaii had full legal authority to sell the entire thing, the same as the US Virgin Islands had full legal authority to sell Little St James
There is nothing in the parent US constitution deterring that either.
Hawaiian authorities partially by a hair sliver decided to try to do something to benefit the Hawaiian people in the face of capital, while collecting the capital. A more patient Ellison or one determined not to have anyone there could have wound up with the whole large private island.
Re: Handmade Hawaiian Islands Map
#24I appreciate that you made that, when I lived in Hawaii for half a year I was surprised to learn that seafaring people and other travellers were going to places I couldn’t see on the base Google map. You had to zoom in and know where to.
And in many cases, bring your passport.
Interesting Waterworld out there
Re: Handmade Hawaiian Islands Map
#25Laughable project. Sorry but I expected a WAY lower scale. People were able to map entire cities block by block by hand in the 16th century...
This is not even a map but an outline of islands and without any scale...
"A map without scale and legend is not a valid map" - i know that from 4th grade...
Most disappointing post of 2026 so far.
At least there is no AI slop. 2/5
Re: Handmade Hawaiian Islands Map
#26Hi all — thanks for the comments and discussion. A few people correctly pointed out that calling these maps "hand-painted" was misleading, and that’s correct. The previous version of the map, which I replaced a few days ago, was entirely hand-painted. These new maps are mixed-media...probably about 80% Adobe Fresco (a tablet drawing app), but both also incorporate physical watercolor and Copic marker layers that I sc…
Finally, someone who likes to geek out about the Hawaiian islands the same way I do.
I am in no way qualified to critique cartography, but I would like to give some constructive criticism as someone who used to live there. A few of the labels imply the island is in a different spot.
For instance Mokuhoʻoniki is to the east of Molokai, but it appears to be to its north in your map.
https://www.google.com/maps/place/21%C2%B008'00.7%2522N+156%...
I am glad you included some of the bathymetric info in the map, as it reveals a lot about how the islands formed and what they might have looked like in the past. (Check out “Maui Nui”). The downside is that some of the seamounts imply many small above sea level islands exist. For instance, it looks like there are a tiny smattering of islands to the southwest of the Big Island around Kuhulu Rock. But those seamounts are unrelated to the Hawaiian hotspot and are deeply submerged. The reason I noted Mokuhoʻoniki is because that appears to be where the Tuscaloosa Seamount is located.
That seamount is fascinating in and of itself, is it is actually a massive fragment of the Koʻolau mountain that slid into the sea millions of years ago.
I’d be thrilled to talk more about your map, and provide any more interesting details. The last thing I’d like to add is that the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands have Hawaiian names as well. You may be interested in providing those names. For instance, the Gardner Pinnacles is known as Pūhāhonu.
Re: Handmade Hawaiian Islands Map
#27I appreciate that you made that, when I lived in Hawaii for half a year I was surprised to learn that seafaring people and other travellers were going to places I couldn’t see on the base Google map. You had to zoom in and know where to. And in many cases, bring your passport. Interesting Waterworld out there
You may be intrigued by a channel between Lānaʻi and Kahoʻolawe named “Kealaikahiki”, which translates to “The road to Tahiti”. Following the direction of the channel will lead to Tahiti. I find this fascinating because voyages between the Hawaiian islands and the rest of Polynesia appeared to have stopped, or became very rare, after the initial settlement. How incredible is it that the name of a place retains such a connection to the rest of the world?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Channels_of_the_Hawaiian_Islan...
Re: Handmade Hawaiian Islands Map
#28What a fantastic site. I got in for the Hawai'i maps and stayed and browsed the entire site, reading thru various blog posts. Loved the Iceland journey to see the Puffins. Beautifully made, and it shows.
Would love to see your map-making workflow.
And I like the birdlist too <3
Re: Handmade Hawaiian Islands Map
#29Earlier quoted context omitted.
It is so massive he has to make affordances Epstein never had to. You can visit Lanai today for example. I took a day trip there a couple years ago. Saw the cat sanctuary. Not much else to do there. There is a little holdover company town inland from the Dole days but I didn't visit that. I'm not sure how much time Ellison even spends there. I get the sense that having these some 3k common folk holdout residents plus…
The size of the land isn’t inherently why those concessions were made. Hawaii had full legal authority to sell the entire thing, the same as the US Virgin Islands had full legal authority to sell Little St James There is nothing in the parent US constitution deterring that either. Hawaiian authorities partially by a hair sliver decided to try to do something to benefit the Hawaiian people in the face of capital, whil…
I looked into it because I was curious. Apparently state of Hawaii has owned the 2% for some time, maybe 100 years. Ellison bought the land directly from murdoch who owned the holding company that owned Dole and the 98% portion. So Unfortunately for Hawaii they didn't really make anything off Ellison buying the vast bulk of the island. Maybe in some taxes when it was sold perhaps.
Also, Hawaii, going back to the territory days 120 years ago, did not have authority to sell the whole thing either. There was a cattle rancher who owned half of it and he wanted the other half, and he worked out a land exchange deal to secure nearly the whole thing without having to do a sale and work around the hawaiian organic act.
Re: Handmade Hawaiian Islands Map
#30Earlier quoted context omitted.
The size of the land isn’t inherently why those concessions were made. Hawaii had full legal authority to sell the entire thing, the same as the US Virgin Islands had full legal authority to sell Little St James There is nothing in the parent US constitution deterring that either. Hawaiian authorities partially by a hair sliver decided to try to do something to benefit the Hawaiian people in the face of capital, whil…
I looked into it because I was curious. Apparently state of Hawaii has owned the 2% for some time, maybe 100 years. Ellison bought the land directly from murdoch who owned the holding company that owned Dole and the 98% portion. So Unfortunately for Hawaii they didn't really make anything off Ellison buying the vast bulk of the island. Maybe in some taxes when it was sold perhaps. Also, Hawaii, going back to the terr…
now that's a fun rabbit hole. private individual/family land owners for centuries now, while just our very public tech royalty gets the ire as if they are new.