ʻAiea is a town and census-designated place (CDP) located in Honolulu County, Hawaiʻi. As of the 2000 Census, the CDP had a total population of 9,019.
The people of Aiea pronounce it "I-ayuh." (IPA /ʔai.ea/)
Some residents of ʻAiea claim that their town is the only town in the world spelled with only vowels. This claim may or may not be valid, depending on whether or not one regards the ʻokina to be part of the name "Aiea" or not. Because the ʻokina is considered a consonant in the Hawaiian language, this claim is technically incorrect. However, when people outside of Hawaiʻi speak of ʻAiea, they usually don't include the ʻokina. In this context, claims that Aiea is the only town in the world spelled with only vowels are valid. However there are at least two other towns in the world spelled with only vowels and that would be Ea, Spain and Aue in Germany, and also a village, forest and valley in Scotland called Ae.
ʻAiea was originally the name of an ahupuaʻa, or Hawaiian land division. It stretched from ʻAiea Bay (part of Pearl Harbor) into the mountains to the north. At the end of the 19th century, a sugar cane plantation was opened in the district by the Honolulu Plantation Company.
As ʻAiea has several miles of shoreline on Pearl Harbor, the focus of the 7 December 1941 attack by the Japanese on military installations there greatly impacted the town. For example, one damaged ship, the USS Vestal, beached at ʻAiea Bay to prevent sinking. Many photographers photographed the battle from the hills in ʻAiea.
After World War II the plantation shut down and the mill was converted into a sugar refinery. Meanwhile, developers started extending the town into the surrounding former sugar cane fields. In the years since then, ʻAiea has grown into an important suburb of Honolulu. The town's sugar history came to a close in 1996, when C&H Sugar closed the refinery. Then in 1998, the 99-year old sugar mill was torn down by the owners, amid protests from town residents and the County government.
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