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Being a full time resident, I am asked a lot of questions by visitors to Maui, the answers to which I've sometimes just discovered!

People are curious... They want to know more about our island paradise...  Wouldn't it be nice to be able to answer them intelligently?

The County of Maui has produced a full-color brochure that they are sending to interested businesses worldwide, hoping to influence new business to locate here.  The publication has beautiful photographs, is well-written and it also has a lot of facts.  Let me give you a few examples.

MAUI County is the 423 largest County in the USA out of a total of 3,144 Counties. The county contains 71,977 parcels of property of which 32,749 (45.50%) are Single Family Residences, 20,544(28.54%) are Condominiums, 0(0.00%) are Duplexes and/or Triplexes and 1,193 (1.66%) are Apartment Buildings.

Approximately 63.79% of all residential properties are Owner Occupied.

Maui is 48 miles long and 26 miles wide.  Personally, I thought it was a lot longer than 48 miles.  Take the one trip to Hana in East Maui and you'll swear it's a lot longer.

The average low temperature at Kahului Airport is 67.4 degrees and the average high is 83.7.  I am asked this question a lot.  Since there are so many areas where it is cooler or warmer. the airport is probably a good reference point.

The ethnic makeup of Maui County rally shows our diversity.  Caucasians make up 35% of the island's residents.  Asians (which include Chinese, Filipino, Japanese & Korean) make up 33% and Native Hawaiians make up only 18%.  Rounding off the rest are Latinos with 9 percent, African-Americans with 1% and Americian Indians make up 1% as well.  And finally, there is 3% of the population who don't know what they are but hey... that souldn't surprise anybody!.

Another fact that surprised me is the height of the West Maui Mountains.  Looking at them from down here in Kihei, they look almost as high as Haleakala.  Well guess what?  The highest point is 5,778', whereas the Haleakala is a big 10,025' high.

If somebody asks you how many people vacation or visit Maui in a single year, the figure is 2.5 million.  And they leave around $3.1 billion behind or about $1,300 for each visitor. This big invlux of visitors is no doubt partially due to Conde Nast Traveler magazine ranking Maui as the best island destination in the world for the 12th consecutive year!

Want an easy question?  What's the biggest industry on Maui?  If you guessed tourism, you are right.  That may seem rather obvious.  But what is the second-biggest industry?  Pineapple? Sugar? Wrong!  It is high-technology.  Maui has evolved into a growing high-tech center that could mean higher-paying jobs and environmentally friendly businesses for us in the future.  To me that's really exciting.