There are a number of islands in the Hawaiian Islands spread over a fairly large area. (For commercial travel, you need to fly between them.) The biggest, where the eruption is happening, is also called Hawaii although locals refer to it as Big Island unless they're referring to the state as a whole. Big Island is 4,028 square miles (10,430 km2) and has a population of about 200,000 most of which is on either the east or the west coast.

Most of the population of the state though is in Honolulu on Oahu (also where Pearl Harbor is). There are over 100 islands but just 8 main ones of which casual visitors might visit 5.