Geography of New Zealand an urban area. About percent of the population live in the 17 main urban areas (population of 30,000 or more) and percent live in the four largest cities of Auckland, Christchurch, Wellington, and Hamilton. New Zealand's peoples have been defined by their immigrant origin, the on going process of adaptation to a new land, being changed and changing those who came before. This process has lead to a distinct distribution of culture across New Zealand. Here language and religion are used as markers for the far richer concept of culture. These metrics unfortunately exclude the political rural-urban divide and also
Wellington Region originally settled the region knew it as "Te Upoko o te Ika a Māui", meaning "the head of Māui's fish". Legend recounts that Kupe discovered and explored the region in about the tenth century. The region was settled by Europeans in 1839 by the New Zealand Company. Wellington became the capital of Wellington Province upon the creation of the province in 1853, until the Abolition of the Provinces Act came into force on 1 Nov 1876. Wellington became capital of New Zealand in 1865, the third capital after Russell and Auckland. The region occupies the southern tip of the North