Mauka · the watershed
The fresh water that makes a fishpond possible.
Behind Kaloko-Honokōhau, the slopes of Hualālai catch the trade-wind rain. The water travels underground — Hawaiian basalt is honeycombed with channels — and seeps to the shore mixed with seawater. That brackish wedge is what an engineered fishpond captures and farms.
Mid · the village
A working settlement, intact.
Within today's national park boundaries are heiau, house platforms, kiʻi petroglyphs, and the freshwater channels that fed the ponds. Unlike Puʻukoholā or Hōnaunau, Kaloko-Honokōhau preserves the everyday infrastructure — not a temple complex but a town.
Open this section in the map →Coast · the ponds
ʻAimakapā and Kaloko fishponds.
Loko iʻa — Hawaiian fishponds — are engineered estuaries. Walls of dry-stacked lava enclose a brackish lagoon; sluice gates let small fish in to grow, then close to keep grown fish from leaving. ʻAimakapā and Kaloko are still functional, their walls maintained by NPS and partner stewards.
Reef · anchialine
Anchialine pools and ʻōpaeʻula.
Where fresh and salt water meet underground, anchialine pools form — small, brackish, full of endemic life. The bright-red ʻōpaeʻula (tiny shrimp) is the signature inhabitant. Habitat loss in the rest of Kona makes Kaloko-Honokōhau's pools regionally important.
Ocean · honu
Honu basking on the sand.
Green sea turtles (honu) bask routinely on the beaches at Kaloko-Honokōhau. Stay back: federal law requires a 10-foot buffer.