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Pahala, whose Census spelling is Pāhala, is a census-designated place (CDP) in Hawaii County on the island of Hawaii, in the Kaʻū District, and it is the largest town in Kaʻū.

The 2020 census recorded 1,403 residents in 425 households in the Pahala CDP.

Pahala was created as a sugarcane plantation community, built around a sugar refinery on a flat plateau with direct access to a water well and a central location among the cane fields.

In Hawaiian, Pahala refers to the ashes of leaves from the hala tree, which workers once stuffed into cracks in the sugarcane fields and burned.

The first public school in the Kaʻū District was established in Kapapala in 1881 and later moved to Pahala, where it became Kaʻū High and Pāhala Elementary School, the second oldest public school in Hawaii.

The Kapono Building at the school, still in use today, is the oldest public school building west of the Rocky Mountains.

The Pāhala Sugar Mill shut down in April 1996 after the last sugarcane was hauled and processed, and the mill was dismantled and sold as parts over the next two years.

Pahala's main industries today include one of the world's largest macadamia nut growing orchards, cattle and horse ranching, and small independent Kaʻū Coffee farms, and Kaʻū Coffee has won many international coffee tasting competitions.

On April 27, 1931, the temperature in Pahala reached 100 degrees Fahrenheit, the highest temperature ever recorded in Hawaii.

The CDP covers 0.64 square miles, all of it land, at an elevation of 920 feet, and Hawaii Route 11 forms its southeast border, leading 52 miles northeast to Hilo and 12 miles southwest to Naalehu.