Maui, Hawaii
The island of Maui is the second-largest of the Hawaiian Islands at 727 square miles (1883 kmē). Maui is part of the State of Hawaii and is the largest island in Maui County; the other islands comprising the county being Lanai, Kahoolawe, and Molokai. Maui's resident population exceeds 120,000, ranked third within the state behind the islands of Oahu and Hawaii.
Traditionally, the two major industries on Maui have been agriculture and tourism, with visitors arriving from all over the world. However, government research groups and high technology companies have discovered that Maui has a business environment very favorable for growth in those sectors, and many have located to the island. The Maui Land & Pineapple Company, and the Hawaiian Commercial and Sugar Company (HC&S, a subsidiary of Alexander and Baldwin Company) dominate local agricultural activity. The Maui High Performance Computing Center in Kihei is an Air Force Research Laboratory Center, managed by the University of Hawaii, and provides more than 10,000,000 hours of computing time per year to the research, science, and warfighter communities. The Maui Research and Technology Center (MRTC), also located in Kihei is a program of the High Technology Development Corporation (HTDC), an agency of the State of Hawaii whose focus is to facilitate the growth of Hawaii's commercial high technology sector.
Maui is a leading tourist spot and attracts thousands of weddings, golfers, surfers, windsurfers, kite surfers, parasailers, fishers, divers and whale-watchers per year. Maui is a leading whale-watching center in the Hawaiian Islands. The city is famous for the Hula Bowl (college football), Maui County Fair and Film Festival, tropical rainforest gardens, Atlantis submarine rides, and has a very active real estate, apartment and condo rental market.
