Cold chill
Līhuʻe describes a chill — the cool that settles in an upland place. The name was carried here from a district on Oʻahu, in the central plateau below the Waiʻanae range, by a chief who moved and brought the name with him.
Transplanting a name this way was normal. It carried a claim about lineage and origin as much as about climate.
The town
Līhuʻe grew around a sugar plantation founded in the 1840s and became the island's administrative centre. Nāwiliwili, just below it, is Kauaʻi's deep-water harbour, and the island's airport is here.