Claim: Hawaii is an entity with statehood.

The Hawaiian Islands -LRB- Mokupuni o Hawai`i -RRB- are an archipelago of eight major islands , several atolls , numerous smaller islets , and seamounts in the North Pacific Ocean , extending some 1500 mi from the island of Hawaii in the south to northernmost Kure Atoll . Formerly the group was known to Europeans and Americans as the `` Sandwich Islands '' , a name chosen by James Cook in honor of the then First Lord of the Admiralty John Montagu , 4th Earl of Sandwich . The contemporary name is derived from the name of the largest island , Hawaii Island .   The Hawaiian monarchy was overthrown in 1893 and the United States annexed the islands in 1898 . The U.S. state of Hawaii now occupies the archipelago almost in its entirety -LRB- including the uninhabited Northwestern Hawaiian Islands -RRB- , with the sole exception of Midway Island , which instead separately belongs to the United States as one of its unincorporated territories within the United States Minor Outlying Islands .   The Hawaiian Islands are the exposed peaks of a great undersea mountain range known as the Hawaiian -- Emperor seamount chain , formed by volcanic activity over a hotspot in the Earth 's mantle . The islands are about 1860 mi from the nearest continent .