Matson Navigation Company is an American shipping and navigation services company headquartered in Honolulu, Hawaii. Founded in 1882, provides ocean shipping services across the Pacific to Hawaii, Alaska, Guam, Micronesia, the South Pacific, China, and Japan.

William Matson (1849–1917) founded Matson Navigation Company. He was born in Lysekil in Västra Götaland County, Sweden,The enterprise began in the carrying of merchandise, especially of plantation stores, to the islands and returning with cargoes of sugar. This led to gradually expanding interests at both ends of the line.

In 1924, Matson completed the Matson Building at 215 Market Street in San Francisco. It featured an observation tower and cupola at the northern corner of the building that enabled company executives to see its ships coming through the Golden Gate.

Primarily a conveyor of freight, Matson also introduced into service a number of passenger liners to capitalize on the burgeoning tourist trade.

From the early 20th century through the 1970s, Matson liners sailed from the west coast ports of San Francisco and Los Angeles to Honolulu and points beyond, including a handful of South Pacific ports of call as well as Sydney, Australia and Auckland, New Zealand. Two of their earlier cargo liners, Maui and Wilhelmina, were the first passenger ships to place their engines aft.

Among the "white ships of Matson" were Malolo (rechristened Matsonia), Lurline, Mariposa, and Monterey. With the advent and expansion of routine air travel between the mainland and the islands, Matson's passenger service was greatly diminished, and the liners were eventually retired from trans-Pacific service and virtually gone by the end of the 1970s

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