Kaua’i, anglicized as Kauai, is the fourth largest of the Hawaiian islands, with an area of 562.3 square miles (1,456.4 square kilometers). Because 97% of its land is composed of undeveloped mountain ranges and rainforests, the island is known as the ‘Garden Isle’. It also has 43 miles of beaches, making it the most per coastal mile of any of the island chain.

Polynesian inhabitants settled on the island hundreds of years before the arrival of Europeans, as shown by excavations dating back to as early as 200 A.D. to 600 A.D. These first inhabitants, originally from the Marquesas Islands, lived undisturbed for around five centuries until a second wave of seafarers arrived by sea-canoe from Tahiti. Many Hawaiian traditions and belief structures are rooted in the religion and practices that arrived with these Tahitians.

During the reign of King Kamehameha, the islands of Kauaʻi and Niʻihau were the last Hawaiian Islands to join his Kingdom of Hawaiʻi. Their ruler, Kaumualiʻi, resisted Kamehameha for years. King Kamehameha twice prepared a huge armada of ships and canoes to take the islands by force, and twice failed: once due to a storm, and once due to an epidemic. In the face of the threat of a further invasion, however, Kaumualiʻi decided to join the kingdom without bloodshed, and became Kamehameha's vassal in 1810. He ceded the island to the Kingdom of Hawaiʻi upon his death in 1824.

More Info: en.wikipedia.org