Auckland
New Zealand's largest city, built across an isthmus of volcanoes
Sprawling across a narrow isthmus dotted with dormant volcanic cones, Auckland is New Zealand's largest and most diverse city, a place where two great harbours nearly meet and yachts crowd the water. Often called the City of Sails, the metropolis of around 1.7 million holds roughly a third of the nation's people and the largest Polynesian population of any city on earth. Its mild climate, island-studded gulf, and easy access to beaches, vineyards, and bush give Aucklanders a famously outdoor, water-bound way of life.
The city straddles a slender isthmus between the Waitemata Harbour on the Pacific side and the Manukau Harbour opening to the Tasman Sea, so narrow that the two are only a couple of kilometres apart at one point. Some fifty volcanic cones, craters, and lava fields rise across the urban area, the youngest being the island of Rangitoto offshore. The surrounding Hauraki Gulf is scattered with islands, and the temperate, often-rainy maritime climate keeps the region green throughout the year.
Maori settled this resource-rich isthmus, known as Tamaki Makaurau, centuries before Europeans arrived, terracing its volcanic cones into fortified pa. The British made Auckland New Zealand's capital in 1840, a status it lost to Wellington in 1865, but the city's growth far outpaced its rival. Successive waves of British, Pacific Island, and Asian migration have made it the country's commercial engine and its most multicultural city, a sprawling, harbour-loving metropolis that dominates New Zealand's economy.