New Zealand the United Nations International Telecommunication Union ranks New Zealand 13th in the development of information and communications infrastructure. The 2013 New Zealand census enumerated a resident population of 4,242,048, an increase of 5.3% over the 2006 figure. As of , the total population has risen to an estimated . New Zealand is a predominantly urban country, with % of the population living in the seventeen main urban areas (i.e. population 30,000 or greater) and % living in the four largest cities of Auckland, Christchurch, Wellington, and Hamilton. New Zealand cities generally rank highly on international livability measures. For instance, in
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