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Even in Hawaii, There Is a Loneliest Town: Naalehu, 49 Miles From a City

By SimpleMapLab·Published 13 May 2026·Rank #29 of 50 states·↑ All 50 states

Naalehu, HI — population 2,470, Hawaii County — is the most isolated inhabited place in Hawaii. The nearest city of 10,000+ residents is Kailua Kona, HI, sitting 49 straight-line miles away. Hawaii has 55 towns under 10,000 residents; Naalehu is the most isolated among them.

Map: Naalehu, HI (Hawaii's loneliest inhabited place) and its 5 nearest cities of 10,000+ residents. The brick-red ring shows the empty zone in which no qualifying city exists; the nearest, Kailua Kona, sits on its edge 49 miles away.The brick-red dot marks Naalehu, the most isolated inhabited place in Hawaii. Up to 5 green dots mark the nearest qualifying cities (population 10,000+), each labelled with name and straight-line distance. The brick-red dashed circle traces the empty zone — radius equal to the distance to the very nearest qualifying city. Hilo, HI51 MIPahoa, HI51 MIKeaau, HI57 MIKamuela, HI66 MIKailua Kona, HINaalehuHAWAII 49 MIsimplemaplab.com / studies / most-remote-places
Naalehu (red dot) and the nearest 10,000+ city, Kailua Kona, HI (green dot), separated by 49 straight-line miles.
49 mi
straight-line distance from Naalehu to Kailua Kona, HI
2,470
year-round residents of Naalehu (Census 2020)
15 mi
average distance to nearest anchor across Hawaii's 55 small towns
#29
of 50 states ranked by their loneliest town's isolation
Open a radius around Naalehu → /tools/map-radius-tool · Naalehu, HI · 50 mi
The link opens the SimpleMapLab Map Radius Tool with a 50-mile circle drawn around Naalehu. Try expanding the radius to see how far you have to look before encountering any 10,000+ city — the answer is roughly 49 miles in the direction of Kailua Kona.

Why this happened

Naalehu, HI is Hawaii's most remote inhabited place — but "remote" is relative here: just 49 miles from Kailua Kona. Hawaii is among the more densely populated US states; the average small-town resident lives 15 miles from a qualifying anchor. Naalehu's isolation is real to its 2,470 residents, even if the numbers are modest compared to Montana or Nevada.

Hawaii's 5 most isolated towns

The top 5 most-isolated inhabited places in Hawaii, sorted by distance to the nearest 10,000+ city.

#TownPop.Distance to nearest 10K+Nearest city
1Naalehu2,47049 miKailua Kona, HI
2Ocean View4,38045 miKailua Kona, HI
3Hoolehua1,67037 miLahaina, HI
4Maunaloa50136 miWaimanalo, HI
5Pahala1,82235 miHilo, HI

How Hawaii compares

The states ranked closest to Hawaii on this metric. Click any for the dedicated breakdown.

#28 New York
Blue Mountain Lake · 51 mi to the nearest 10K+ city
#30 Wisconsin
Park Falls · 49 mi to the nearest 10K+ city
#31 Florida
Apalachicola · 46 mi to the nearest 10K+ city
#27 Missouri
Blythedale · 52 mi to the nearest 10K+ city
#26 Alabama
Thomasville · 53 mi to the nearest 10K+ city

Draw your own radius

Open a 50-mile circle around Naalehu →

Try the 100-mile radius to see whether a major city falls inside — for Naalehu, it doesn't, because the nearest qualifying city (Kailua Kona, HI) sits 49 miles away.

Methodology (brief)

We aggregate the US Census ZCTA dataset by postal city, treating any (postal city, state) pair with ≥ 50 residents as a town. Anchor cities are places with ≥ 10,000 residents. For every Hawaii town below the anchor threshold, we compute the straight-line distance to every anchor city in the US (cross-state distances count). The town with the largest minimum distance is Hawaii's loneliest. Full methodology on the hub page.

Suggested citation: SimpleMapLab (2026). The Loneliest Towns in America: Hawaii. Part of the Most Remote Inhabited Places study. Retrieved from https://www.simplemaplab.com/studies/most-remote-places/hawaii. CC-BY 4.0.