JOUR 300/JOUR 481: Land & Real Estate

Kīpuka Database, maintained by the Office of Hawaiian Affairs, is a GIS relational database that merges datasets related to Native Hawaiian land, culture, and history. Layers included in the database include historic sites, land awards, government lands, crown lands, trust lands, moku, ahupuaʻa, ʻili, and tax map keys.

Each county’s parcels are shown on tax maps, which are numbered using a system called tax map keys (TMKs), which follow a 9-digit format. The first digit is the county code, with 1 = Honolulu, 2 = Maui, 3 = Hawaiʻi, and 4 = Kauaʻi County. These are followed by a one-digit zone number, a one-digit section number, a three-digit plat number, and a three-digit parcel number. For example, TMK 118028009 means that the parcel is in Honolulu County, zone 1, section 8, plat 028, parcel 009. Occasionally, TMKs are written without the county code. These numbers are essential for using other geospatial tools to retrieve information about parcels of land.

Property Search (TMK maps)

• Honolulu City and County
• Hawaiʻi County
• Kauaʻi County
• Maui County

The AVA (Ancestral Visions of ʻĀina) Konohiki project of the Kamakakūokalani Center for Hawaiian Studies at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa teaches students to understand land documents, create metadata, transcribe, and upload them to the website. The project makes available the Buke Mahele, Foreign Testimonies, Native Testimonies and associated indexes, ahupuaʻa maps, and Land Claim Award index images and transcriptions.