Auckland

Māori settled the Auckland isthmus, called Tāmaki Makaurau, 'Tāmaki desired by many', around the fourteenth century. Its fertile volcanic soil and two harbours made it highly prized, and many of its volcanic cones were terraced as fortified villages called pā. In 1840 the Treaty of Waitangi was signed between the British Crown and Māori chiefs, and that same year Auckland was founded as the capital of the new colony. The capital moved to Wellington in 1865, but Auckland kept growing as the country's commercial centre. Disputes over land and the treaty led to the New Zealand Wars in the 1860s. In the twentieth century, migration from the Pacific Islands made Auckland the city with the largest Polynesian population in the world.

Aucklanders love the water: there are said to be more boats per person here than almost anywhere, hence the nickname 'City of Sails'. Māori culture is woven into public life, with te reo Māori place names, the haka and the welcome ceremony called pōwhiri. Pacific Island communities celebrate at the Pasifika Festival each March. Try a hāngī, food cooked in an earth oven, fish and chips on the beach, meat pies, and a pavlova. Rugby, and the All Blacks, are a national passion.