Honiara, Solomon Islands — Towns & Travel Guide

What is Honiara known for?

The hills ringing Honiara were the sites of fierce battles during World War II, and the ground those battles left behind remains the single strongest reason travellers come to Guadalcanal at all. Point Cruz handles the shipping. Beyond that, the capital works as the administrative centre of Solomon Islands, the place where business for the wider island group gets done.

Where is Honiara?

Honiara occupies the northwestern coast of Guadalcanal, one of the Solomon Islands, with hills standing directly behind the shoreline strip that carries the city. The hills matter here. Most of them were the sites of fierce battles during World War II, and that wartime ground sits immediately above the streets of a working capital.

Point Cruz gives the city its seaport, set on the same stretch of coast that the Kukum Highway runs along. The capital territory proclaimed in 1983 covers a metropolitan area of 22 square kilometres, which makes it a compact unit beside the far larger Guadalcanal Province that surrounds it. The island setting governs the rest.

Honiara looks outward by sea and air rather than by road, since Guadalcanal's coast carries what traffic there is and the rest of Solomon Islands lies across water. Guadalcanal Province keeps its own claim on the city. Honiara serves as the provincial capital as well as the national one, so the same coastal ground answers to two administrations, one covering the island province and one covering the country.

The city is served by Honiara International Airport and by the seaport at Point Cruz, and both of those doors open onto the coastal ground the Kukum Highway follows.

What is Honiara like?

Memory of the war runs through the place. The hills above Honiara hold a wealth of World War II sites, and those sites shape what the city presents to outsiders more than any other single thing about it. Guadalcanal's name carries that weight.

The fighting was fierce across most of the ground immediately around the city, and the battlefields left behind account for much of what a visitor is directed towards. English is the language of the capital. Honiara draws people from across Solomon Islands because the national government, the seaport at Point Cruz and Honiara International Airport all sit inside the same small capital territory.

That concentration gives the city a mixed character. It answers to two roles at once, as the capital of the country and as the capital of Guadalcanal Province, and both of those duties are carried on the same narrow piece of Guadalcanal coast. Point Cruz keeps the city facing the sea.

Ships and the Kukum Highway carry what moves, and the working life of Honiara runs along that coastal line rather than turning inland towards the hills.

What is the history of Honiara?

The war is the pivot. Fierce fighting swept most of the hills in the Honiara area during World War II, and the sites that fighting left behind are still the best-documented part of the city's past. A capital territory followed in 1983.

That proclamation gave the 22-square-kilometre metropolitan area a self-governing status akin to a province, while Honiara kept its older role as capital of Guadalcanal Province.

What is the climate of Honiara?

Guadalcanal sits inside the tropical band, and Honiara takes its weather from an island coast rather than from any continental interior. The sea is the moderating agent. Water surrounds Guadalcanal on every side, so the hills behind the city and the shoreline the Kukum Highway follows share the same warm and humid air through the year.

Seasons here belong to the southern half of the world, which puts Honiara's calendar out of step with the northern one.

How do you get to Honiara?

Honiara International Airport handles the arrivals. It is the city's air link, and for anyone reaching Guadalcanal from outside Solomon Islands the flight in is the ordinary way to do it. Point Cruz takes the shipping.

The seaport there gives Honiara its sea connection, and the Kukum Highway is the road the city lies along, carrying what moves between one end of the coastal strip and the other.