Maalaea, Hawaii

Maalaea, Hawaii Māʻalaea
Census-designated place
Location in Maui County and the state of Hawaii
Coordinates: 20°48′34″N 156°29′27″W / 20.80944°N 156.49083°W / 20.80944; -156.49083
Country	United States
State	Hawaii
County	Maui
Area [1]
• Total	7.49 sq mi (19.39 km2)
• Land	5.16 sq mi (13.35 km2)
• Water	2.33 sq mi (6.04 km2)
Elevation	98 ft (30 m)
Population  (2020)
• Total	310
• Density	60.14/sq mi (23.22/km2)
Time zone	UTC-10 (Hawaii-Aleutian)
Area code	808
FIPS code	15-46400
GNIS feature ID	0361945

Mā'alaea (Hawaiian: Māʻalaea) is a census-designated place (CDP) in Maui County, Hawaii, United States. The population was 310 at the 2020 census. Mā‘alaea sits on the southern coast of the isthmus separating West Maui from the island’s Central Valley. Like other ahupua‘a (Hawaiian land divisions), it widens as it descends from mountain slopes into the sea, occupying 5.4 square miles of land and 2.3 miles of ocean. For more than a millennium, Mā‘alaea has been a crossroads, a landing place for Hawaiian kings and armies, and in time, whalers and sailing ships. Highways follow the ancient trails that once branched north to Wailuku (today Maui County’s governmental seat), west to Lahaina, and south to what are now the towns of Kīhei and Wailea. The name Mā‘alaea comes from the Hawaiian word ‘alae, the iron oxide from volcanic eruptions that gives the region its iron-rich red earth.