Wellington

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Urban Area
Wellington
Image:Wellington.PNG
Population:	445,400 ( Statistics NZ , estimated resident population, June 2002).
Location:	Template:Coor dms
Mayor:	various, see each council
Extent:	Central Wellington, Hutt Valley, Porirua, Pukerua Bay and Pauatahanui
Territorial Authority
Names:	Porirua City Council Upper Hutt City Council Hutt City Council Wellington City Council
Regional Council:	Greater Wellington Regional Council

Wellington (Te Whanganui-a-Tara or Poneke) is the capital of New Zealand, the country's second-largest urban area and the most populous national capital in Oceania. Wellington stands at the southern tip of the North Island in the geographical centre of the country.

New Zealand's major financial institutions are divided between Wellington and Auckland, and some organisations have headquarters in both cities. It is New Zealand's political centre, housing Parliament and head offices for all government departments and ministries. Wellington is often described as New Zealand's cultural centre, boasting a world-class film and theatre industry, Te Papa (the Museum of New Zealand), the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra and the Royal New Zealand Ballet. Its compact city centre supports an arts scene, café culture and nightlife much larger than most cities of a similar size.

Wellington was named in honour of Arthur Wellesley, the first Duke of Wellington and victor at the Battle of Waterloo. The Duke's title comes from the town of Wellington in the English county of Somerset.

In the Māori language Wellington goes by two names. Te Whanganui-a-Tara refers to Wellington Harbour and means "the great harbour of Tara". The alternative name Pōneke is often discouraged because of a belief that it is nothing more than a transliteration of the harbour's former nickname in English, Port Nick, short for Port Nicholson.

Like many cities, Wellington's urban area extends well beyond the boundaries of a single local authority. Greater Wellington or the Wellington Region means the entire urban area, plus the rural parts of the cities and the Kapiti Coast, and across the Rimutaka Range to the Wairarapa.

1 History
2 Location and geographics
3 Demographics
4 Panoramas
5 Sport
6 Notable Wellingtonians
7 See also
8 External links

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History

Image:WellingtonPanorama.jpg

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Settlement

The Māori who originally settled the Wellington area knew it as Te Upoko o te Ika a Maui, meaning "the head of Maui's fish". Legend recounts that Kupe discovered and explored the district in about the 10th century.

European settlement began with the arrival of an advance party of the New Zealand Company on the ship Tory, on 20 September 1839, followed by 150 settlers on the ship Aurora on 22 January 1840. Legend states that the settlers constructed their first homes at Britannia (now Petone) on the flat area at the mouth of the Hutt River but when this proved too swampy and flood-prone they transplanted the plans without regard for a more hilly terrain — Wellington has some extremely steep streets running straight up the sides of hills.

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Earthquakes

Image:Wellington-FromTopOfMountVictoria.jpg

Image:Wellington 21 Jan 2006.jpg

Wellington suffered serious damage in a series of earthquakes in 1848 and from another earthquake in 1855. The 1855 (Wairarapa) earthquake occurred on a fault line to the north and east of Wellington. It ranks as probably the most powerful earthquake in recorded New Zealand history, with an estimated magnitude of at least 8.2 on the Richter scale. It caused vertical movements of 2 to 3 m over a large area, including raising an area of land out of the harbour and turning it into a tidal swamp. Much of this land was subsequently reclaimed and is now part of Wellington's central business district. For this reason the street named Lambton Quay now runs 100 to 200 m distant from the harbour. Plaques set into the footpath along Lambton Quay indicate the location of the shoreline in 1840 and thus indicate the extent of the uplift and of subsequent reclamation.

The area has high seismic activity even by New Zealand standards, with a major fault line running through the centre of the city, and several others nearby. Several hundred more minor fault lines have been identified within the urban area. The inhabitants, particularly those in high-rise buildings, typically notice several earthquakes every year. For many years after the 1855 earthquake, the majority of buildings constructed in Wellington were made entirely from wood. The recently restored (1996) Government Buildings, near the Railway Station and Parliament Buildings, comprise the largest wooden office building in the Southern Hemisphere. While masonry and structural steel have subsequently been used in building construction, especially for office buildings, timber framing remains the primary structural component of almost all residential construction. Residents also place their hopes of survival in good building regulations, which gradually became more stringent in the course of the 20th century.

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New Zealand's capital

Image:Wellington Parliament n.jpg

In 1865 Wellington became the capital of New Zealand, replacing Auckland, where William Hobson had established his capital in 1841. Parliament first sat in Wellington on 7 July 1862, but the city did not become the official capital for some time. In November 1863 Alfred Domett moved a resolution before Parliament (in Auckland) that "it has become necessary that the seat of government... should be transferred to some suitable locality in Cook Strait." Apparently there was concern that the southern regions, where the gold fields were located, would form a separate colony. Commissioners from Australia (chosen for their neutral status) pronounced the opinion that Wellington was suitable because of its harbour and central location. Parliament officially sat in Wellington for the first time on 26 July 1865. The population of Wellington was then 4,900 (reference Phillip Temple: Wellington Yesterday).

Government House, the official residence of the Governor-General, stands next to the Basin Reserve. The official residence formerly occupied the site where the Beehive, the Executive Wing of the New Zealand Parliament Buildings, stands; it is occasionally referred to as Helengrad, as a partisan joke.

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Location and geographics

Image:Wellington landsat labelled.jpg Wellington stands at the south-western tip of the North Island on Cook Strait, the passage that separates the North and South Islands. On a clear day the snowcapped Kaikoura Ranges are visible to the south across the strait. To the north stretch the golden beaches of the Kapiti Coast. On the east the Rimutaka Range divides Wellington from the broad plains of the Wairarapa, a wine region of national acclaim.

Wellington is the southernmost national capital city in the world, with a latitude about 41°S. It is more densely populated than most other settlements in New Zealand, due to the small amount of building space available between the harbour and the surrounding hills. Because of its location in the roaring forties latitudes and its exposure to omnipresent winds coming through Cook Strait, the city is known to kiwis as "Windy Wellington".

More than most cities, life in Wellington is dominated by its central business district. Approximately 62,000 people work in the Wellington CBD, only 4,000 fewer than work in Auckland's CBD, despite that city having three times Wellington's population. Wellington's cultural and nightlife venues concentrate in Courtenay Place and surroundings located in the southern part of the CBD, making the inner city suburb of Te Aro the largest entertainment destination in New Zealand.

Wellington has the highest average income of a main urban area in New Zealand and the highest percentage of people with tertiary qualifications.

Image:Wellington Te Papa n.jpgWellington has a reputation for its picturesque natural harbour and green hillsides adorned with tiered suburbs of colonial villas. The city's CBD is sited close to Lambton Harbour, an arm of Wellington Harbour. Wellington Harbour lies along an active geological fault, which is clearly evident on its straight western coast. The land to the west of this rises abruptly, meaning that many of Wellington's suburbs sit high above the centre of the city.

To the east of the city is the Miramar Peninsula, connected to the rest of the city by a low-lying isthmus at Rongotai, which is the site of Wellington International Airport. The narrow entrance to Wellington is directly to the east of the Miramar Peninsula, and contains the dangerous shallows of Barrett Reef, where many ships have been wrecked (most famously the inter-island ferry Wahine in 1968).

On the hill west of the city centre are Victoria University and Wellington Botanic Garden. Both can be reached on a funicular railway, the Wellington Cable Car.

Wellington Harbour has three islands: Matiu/Somes Island, Makaro/Ward Island and Mokopuna. Only Matiu/Somes Island is large enough for settlement. It has been used as a quarantine station for people and animals and as an internment camp during the First and Second World Wars. It is now a conservation island, providing refuge for endangered species, much like Kapiti Island further up the coast. There is access during daylight hours by the Dominion Post Ferry.

The city has an average annual rainfall of 1270 mm.

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Demographics

As at the last census, 18.5% of people in Wellington were under the age of 15 years, compared with 22.7% for all of New Zealand. Around 8.6% of people were aged 65 years and over compared with 12.1% for all of New Zealand.

85.6% of people in Wellington city said they are of European ethnic origin. Around 4.1% are Māori, with the remainder being of Pacific Islander, Asian or other ethnicity.

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Panoramas

Image:Wellington City Night.jpg Image:Wellington City Day.jpg Image:WellingtonPano.jpg

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Sport

Home of the Wellington Hurricanes — Super 14 (formerly Super 12) Rugby Team
Wellington Lions — National Provincial Championship Rugby Team
Home of the Wellington Firebirds cricket team
Home of the Capital Shakers — The National Bank Cup Netball Team
Wellington City hosted a Wellington 500 street race for touring cars between 1985 to 1996.

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Notable Wellingtonians

Karl Urban - actor
Jane Campion — Oscar winning film maker
Russell Crowe — actor
Peter Jackson — Oscar winning film-maker
Katherine Mansfield — writer
Jack Marshall — former Prime Minister of New Zealand
William Hayward Pickering — electrical engineer who became the head of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California
Anna Paquin - Oscar winning actress
Jon Toogood — singer and guitarist for the rock band Shihad
Tana Umaga — former captain of the All Blacks
Ben Hana — Blanket Man