New Zealand

🇳🇿 New Zealand

Auckland

Auckland (Tāmaki Makaurau in Māori — "Tāmaki desired by many," a name reflecting the fertility and desirability of the Auckland isthmus that was fought over by Māori tribes for centuries) is the largest city in New Zealand (population 1.7 million in the Auckland urban area — 35% of New Zealand's entire population in a single city) and the commercial, cultural and sporting capital of the country. Auckland is built on one of the most geologically active urban landscapes in the world: the Auckland Volcanic Field (53 volcanoes, of which the youngest (Rangitoto Island) erupted only 600 years ago): the city sits on a 2km-wide isthmus between the Waitemata Harbour (the Pacific Ocean side) and the Manukau Harbour (the Tasman Sea side) — the narrowest point in New Zealand — and the extinct volcanic cones (now grassy hills within the city) provide the most dramatic urban topography in the Southern Hemisphere. Auckland is also one of the most ethnically diverse cities in the world: 39% of Auckland residents were born outside New Zealand, the third highest proportion of any major city (after Dubai and Brussels), with large communities from the Pacific Islands (Samoa, Tonga, Fiji — Auckland is the largest Polynesian city in the world), India, China and the UK.

🇳🇿 New Zealand

Christchurch

Christchurch (population 385,000 city, 490,000 metropolitan area — the largest city on New Zealand's South Island and the most important gateway to the Southern Alps and the Canterbury Plains) is the most resilient and the most radically transformed city in the Southern Hemisphere: the catastrophic earthquakes of 2010 and 2011 (the February 22 2011 earthquake (magnitude 6.2) was the most deadly natural disaster in New Zealand since 1931 — 185 people were killed and the most important historic buildings in the city center were destroyed in 8 seconds) triggered the most ambitious urban redevelopment project in New Zealand history and one of the most significant urban rebuild programs in the world. The result is the "Re:START" city (the most creatively reimagined city center in the Southern Hemisphere: the former bombed-out city center replaced with the most innovative container mall, the most important contemporary architecture in New Zealand and the most creative urban interventions in Australasia). The city sits on the edge of the Canterbury Plains (the most productive agricultural land in New Zealand) with the Port Hills and Banks Peninsula immediately to the south and the Southern Alps visible to the west, and is the most important gateway to the most spectacular natural landscapes in New Zealand (the Franz Josef Glacier, the Milford Sound and Aoraki/Mount Cook — the highest mountain in New Zealand at 3,724m).

🇳🇿 New Zealand

Wellington

Wellington (population 215,000 city / 440,000 greater Wellington; the capital of New Zealand since 1865 (relocated from Auckland when the South Island gold rush made a more central capital necessary); on the southern tip of the North Island at the entrance to Cook Strait — the 26 km stretch of water between the North and South Islands that is one of the roughest sea passages in the Southern Hemisphere (the Roaring Forties wind system (the persistent westerly winds of 40-50° south latitude) forces through the narrowing Cook Strait, creating the sea state that makes the Interislander ferry crossing the most dramatic in New Zealand)) is consistently ranked one of the most liveable cities in the world and is the most compact and walkable national capital in the Southern Hemisphere: a city of 215,000 people in a harbour bowl surrounded by steep green hills (the Remutaka Range to the northeast, the Tararua Range to the north, the Marlborough Hills on the South Island visible across Cook Strait on clear days) where the waterfront (the Wellington City Waterfront — the 2 km reclaimed-land promenade from the railway station to the Oriental Parade beach, completed with the Te Papa national museum in 1998) is the social centre of New Zealand's capital city, and where the flat white coffee (the flat white — the espresso drink consisting of a double ristretto with microfoam steamed milk (ratio: 1:2 coffee to milk) — was invented simultaneously in Auckland and Sydney in the 1980s but is most closely associated with the Wellington café culture that made New Zealand the most coffee-sophisticated country in the Southern Hemisphere) is taken as seriously as any civic institution. Wellington is the creative centre of New Zealand: the home of the New Zealand Film Commission, the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra, the Royal New Zealand Ballet, and most importantly the Weta Workshop and Weta Digital (the physical and digital effects companies founded by Sir Peter Jackson (born in Pukerua Bay, 30 km north of Wellington) that produced the visual effects for the Lord of the Rings trilogy (2001-2003), The Hobbit trilogy (2012-2014), King Kong (2005) and Avatar (2009-2022)).