View of the Hawaiian Islands Metal Ornament

The Hawaiian Islands are an archipelago of eight major islands, several atolls, numerous smaller islets, and undersea sea mounts in the North Pacific Ocean, extending some 1,500 miles from the island of Hawaii in the south to northernmost Kure Atoll. Excluding Midway, an unincorporated territory within the United States Minor Outlying Islands, the Hawaiian Islands form the U.S. state of Hawaii. Once known as the "Sandwich Islands", the archipelago now takes its name from the largest island in the cluster.