Manawatū–Whanganui
Manawatū-Whanganui is a region in the lower half of the North Island of New Zealand, whose main population centres are the cities of Palmerston North and Whanganui. It is administered by the Manawatū-Whanganui Regional Council, which operates under the name Horizons Regional Council. The region covers over 22,000 square kilometres, making it the sixth largest region by area in the country and is home to 261,100 residents.
Name
The region takes its name from the two major rivers flowing through it: the Manawatū River and the Whanganui River.In the Māori language, the name Manawatū is a compound word that originates from an old Māori waiata. The waiata "Ka tatū e hine ko Manawatū" describes the search by an early ancestor, Haunui-a-Nanaia, for his wife, during which he named various waterways in the district, and says that his heart settled or momentarily stopped when he saw the Manawatū River.
Whanga nui is a phrase meaning "big bay" or "big harbour". The first name of the European settlement at Whanganui was Petre, after Lord Petre, an officer of the New Zealand Company, but the name was never popular and was officially changed to "Wanganui" in 1854. In the local dialect, Māori pronounce the wh in Whanganui as, a voiced labial–velar approximant combined with a glottal stop, but to non-locals the name sounds like "Wanganui" and is hard to reproduce.
In 1991 the New Zealand Geographic Board considered demands from some local Māori to change the name of the river to Whanganui. After widespread controversy for many years, in September 2019 the New Zealand Geographic Board announced that from 18 October 2019 the name of the Manawatu-Wanganui region, and the regional council, would incorporate both the letter "h" and a macron, becoming "Manawatū-Whanganui". This became the official spelling of the name on 18 October, although the Manawatū-Whanganui Regional Council would continue to use the trading name of Horizons Regional Council.
Government
The region covers all or part of ten territorial authority areas. Parts of five of these are covered by five other regions of New Zealand, the most of any region. In descending order of land area the territorial authority districts are Ruapehu, the major parts of Tararua District and Rangitikei, Manawatū, Whanganui, Horowhenua, and small parts of Stratford, Waitomo, and Taupō. The largest city is Palmerston North, with a population of 85,300. It is the only territorial authority in the region to be administered by a city council.The governing body of the regional council consists of 12 councillors from 6 constituencies across the region, elected by the public; from the north: Ruapehu, Whanganui, Manawatū-Rangitikei, Palmerston North, Horowhenua, Tararua District. It sits in Palmerston North. It has the responsibility for managing natural and physical resources, providing flood protection and monitoring environmental problems and fresh air, clean water, productive land and natural eco-systems. It is also responsible for public transport.
Geography
The region is dominated and defined by two significant river catchments, the Whanganui and the Manawatu. The Whanganui River, in the northwest, is the longest navigable river in New Zealand. The river was extremely important to early Māori as it was the southern link in a chain of waterways that spanned almost two-thirds of the North Island. It was one of the chief areas of Māori settlement with its easily fortified cliffs and ample food supplies. Legends emphasise the importance of the river and it remains sacred to Whanganui iwi. Māori along the coast and lowland plains grew kūmara and other crops. The Manawatū River runs across the centre of the region, from rolling hill country in the east to the fertile Manawatū Plains in the west. The main city of Palmerston North is located on these plains, and is an important service city for the southern North Island as a whole. This river is unusual, in that it passes from hill country to plains through a gorge cut into much higher country, an indication that the hills have risen since the river formed.To the southeast, a further, more sparsely populated area of the Tararua District lies between the sources of the Manawatū River near Norsewood and the Pacific coast. This area, often historically connected with both the Hawke's Bay Region to the north and the Wairarapa to the south, was historically simply known as Bush, a name which still survives in some businesses and organisations, most notably the Wairarapa Bush Rugby Football Union.
The two river catchments have very different natures. While the open Manawatū Plains became more densely settled by Europeans, inland Ruapehu, Rangitikei, and Whanganui remained more Māori-dominated, remote and independent, and is still heavily forested. As late as the 1950s the Whanganui River remained a river of mystery. Since then exploitation of the river's commercial potential has opened up the area, often causing friction with local Māori, who have long-standing grievances. Manawatū-Whanganui as a whole is one of the most important pastoral areas in New Zealand, its status recognised when the government opened the Massey Agricultural College in the 1920s.
Much of Manawatū-Wanganui was fertile and bush-covered when Europeans arrived and developed the area as a source of timber. Saw milling and flax milling dominated the 19th century, followed by an influx of sheep farmers who exploited the newly cleared ground. Deforestation, burn-offs of timber and scrub and large scale drainage combined with overgrazing, resulted in considerable environmental degradation. In the early 1900s authorities realised that careful management was needed to maintain this important agricultural area.
Topography
Manawatū-Whanganui takes up a large proportion of the lower half of the North Island. It is the second-largest local government region in the North Island and the sixth-largest in New Zealand, totalling . The region stretches from north of Taumarunui to south of Levin on the west coast, and across to the east coast from Cape Turnagain to Ōwhango. It borders the Waikato, Taranaki, Hawke's Bay and Wellington regions and includes river catchment areas that run from the volcanic plateau to the sea. The Pacific Ocean is the eastern boundary and the Ruahine Range forms a natural boundary with Hawke's Bay.The area includes a variety of landscape formations. Districts close to the Volcanic Plateau are higher and more rugged, often subject to harsh temperatures in winter. The Manawatū District has a much gentler topography, consisting mainly of the flat, tree-studded Manawatū Plains that run between the ranges and the sea. The land was under the sea till about 500,000 years ago and still has a very thick layer of marine sediment, which is about five or six million years old. A block faulting system underneath the thick sediment has raised a series of domes and gentle depressions. These structures can provide natural storage areas for oil and some of the Manawatū domes have been drilled. The domes have shaped the course of the Manawatū River, giving it a meandering path which, uniquely among New Zealand rivers, begins close to the east coast and exits on the west coast. The Manawatū River begins just inside the Hawke's Bay Region, then flows through a deep gorge to the Manawatū Plains before exiting in the Tasman Sea. The river is also unique in New Zealand in that this gorge is a water gap through recently uplifted rock, causing the river to flow from relatively low-lying land along an eroded course through higher terrain. The Whanganui District is more rugged, with canyon-like valleys and gorges carved out of the soft rock by rivers and ocean waves.
The region includes a series of mountain ranges, notably the Tararua Range and the Ruahine Range and the three major active volcanoes of the North Island. Mount Ruapehu at 2,797 m is the tallest mountain in the North Island, Ngauruhoe 2,291 m and Tongariro 1,968 m. During the last 100 years Ruapehu has experienced six significant eruptions, and last erupted in 1995 and 1996.
Three major rivers divide the region: the Whanganui, Manawatū ), and Rangitīkei. The Whanganui is the second-longest river and has the second-largest catchment in the North Island, draining most of the inland region west of Lake Taupō. There are few roads in this area, which contains some of the largest surviving areas of native bush in the North Island.
Soil and climate
Soils are productive with the addition of nitrogen fertiliser. In the Manawatū and Horowhenua districts there are sandy soils and swampy hollows around the coast with loess-covered terraces and river flats inland. These river flats and swamp areas contain fertile alluvial and organic soils. On the drier terraces inland yellow-grey earths predominate. The flatter more fertile soils suit intensive sheep farming and cropping while the hill country of Rangitikei favours semi-intensive sheep and beef farming. Areas close to the volcanic plateau consist largely of pumice soils which lack some essential trace elements but within the region much of this land is occupied by national parks.The region has a comparatively mild climate with greater climatic extremes inland. Chateau Tongariro experienced the lowest temperature recorded in the North Island, falling to on 7 July 1937. In summer the region is warm, with a maximum mid-summer daily average of between. Sunshine hours approximate the national average for much of the region but Palmerston North is defined as cloudy with an average of 1,725 sunshine hours. In the winter the minimum mid-winter daily average for coastal areas is, while inland areas are considerably colder. Waiouru has a minimum mid-winter daily average of.
Rainfall on the plains is slightly below average, with Palmerston North receiving, while the rest of the region receives the New Zealand average rainfall of.