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
Auckland City as banking and insurance, which were affected by financial crises. However, over the last five years of its existence, Auckland's economic growth averaged 1.4% each year, higher than the average of the region and the nation. In 2003 three of the ten largest companies in New Zealand (Air New Zealand, Fletcher Building, and Foodstuffs) were headquartered in Auckland City. Many large corporations were housed within Auckland CBD, the central part of Auckland City. Air New Zealand has its worldwide headquarters, called "The Hub", off Beaumont and Fanshawe Streets in the Western Reclamation; the airline moved there from the Auckland CBD