Napier, New Zealand
Napier is a city in the Hawke's Bay region on the eastern coast of the North Island of New Zealand. It is a beachside city with a seaport, known for its sunny climate, esplanade lined with Norfolk pines, and extensive Art Deco architecture. For these attributes, Napier is sometimes romantically referred to as the "Nice of the Pacific".
Napier is located on the territory of Ngāti Kahungunu, one of the country's largest iwi, and as a city has been shaped by nearly two centuries of migration. Its population is about About south of Napier is the city of Hastings. These two neighbouring cities are often called "The Bay Cities" or "The Twin Cities" of New Zealand, with the two cities and the surrounding towns of Havelock North and Clive having a combined population of. The City of Napier has a land area of and a population density of 540.0 per square kilometre.
Napier is the nexus of the largest wool centre in the Southern Hemisphere, and Napier Port is the primary export seaport for northeastern New Zealand – which is the largest producer of apples, pears, and stone fruit in the country. The fruit grown around Hastings and Napier is exported through the port, along with large amounts of sheep wool, frozen meat, wood pulp, and timber. Smaller amounts of these products are shipped by road and railway to the large metropolitan areas of New Zealand, such as Auckland, Wellington and Hamilton. The Hawke's Bay wine region is the second largest in New Zealand, after Marlborough.
Tourists are drawn by Napier's unique concentration of 1930s Art Deco, and to a lesser extent Spanish Mission, architecture, built after much of the city was razed in the 1931 Hawke's Bay earthquake. It also has one of the most photographed tourist attractions in the country, a statue of the figure in local Ngāti Kahungunu mythology, Pania, on Marine Parade. Thousands of people flock to Napier every February for the Tremains Art Deco Weekend event, a celebration of its Art Deco heritage and history. Other notable tourist events attracting many outsiders to the region annually include F.A.W.C! Food and Wine Classic events, and the Mission Estate Concert at Mission Estate Winery in the suburb of Taradale.
History
Māori history
Napier has well-documented Māori history. When the Ngāti Kahungunu party of Taraia reached the district many centuries ago, the Whatumamoa, Rangitāne, Ngāti Awa and elements of the Ngāti Tara iwi lived in the nearby areas of Petane, Te Whanganui-a-Orotu and Waiohiki. Ngāti Kahungunu later became the dominant force from Poverty Bay to Wellington. Chief Te Ahuriri cut a channel from the lagoon to the sea at Ahuriri because the Westshore entrance had become blocked, threatening cultivations surrounding the lagoon and the fishing villages on the islands in the lagoon. The rivers were continually feeding freshwater into the area. Ngāti Kahungunu were one of the first Māori tribes that European settlers had contact with.European settlers history
and his crew were the first Europeans to see the future site of Napier when they sailed down the east coast in October 1769. He commented: "On each side of this bluff head is a low, narrow sand or stone beach, between these beaches and the mainland is a pretty large lake of salt water I suppose." He said the harbour entrance was at the Westshore end of the shingle beach.After 1830, the site was visited and later settled by European traders, whalers and missionaries. By the 1850s, farmers and hotel-keepers arrived.
The Crown purchased the Ahuriri block in 1851. In 1854 Alfred Domett, a future Prime Minister of New Zealand, was appointed as the Commissioner of Crown Lands and the resident magistrate at the village of Ahuriri. It was decided to place a planned town here, its streets and avenues were laid out, and the new town named for Sir Charles Napier, a military leader during the "Battle of Meeanee" fought in the country of Sindh, in the Indian subcontinent. Domett named many streets in Napier to commemorate the colonial era of the British Indian Empire.
Development was generally confined to the hills and to the port area of Ahuriri. In the early years, Napier covered almost exclusively an oblong group of hills which was nearly entirely surrounded by the ocean, but from which ran out two single spits, one to the north and one to the south. There was a swamp between the now Hastings Street and Wellesley Road, and the sea extended to Clive Square.
Napier was designated as a borough in 1874, but the development of the surrounding marshlands and reclamation proceeded slowly. Napier was the administrative centre for the Hawke's Bay Province from 1858 until the abolition of New Zealand's provincial governments in 1876.
20th century
On 3 February 1931, most of Napier and nearby Hastings was levelled by an earthquake. The collapse of buildings and the ensuing fires killed 256 people. Some 4000 hectares of today's Napier were undersea before the earthquake raised it above sea level. The earthquake uplifted an area of 1500 km2 with a maximum of 2.7 m of uplift. In Hastings, about 1 m of ground subsidence occurred.Image:Napier Halsbury Chambers n.jpg|thumb|200px|left|Halsbury Chambers
Image:Napier-SoundShell.jpg|thumb|right|200px|Sound Shell at night
Image:Napier-TypicalView.jpg|thumb|left|200px|Lit-up dome of the T & G building at dusk
Image:Napier fountain.jpg|thumb|right|150px|Tom Parker Fountain at dusk
The centre of Napier, destroyed by the earthquake, was rebuilt in the Art Deco style popular in the 1930s. Although a few Art Deco buildings were replaced with contemporary structures in the 1960s to 1980s, most of the centre remained intact for long enough to become recognised as architecturally important, and it has been protected and restored since the 1990s. Napier and the area of South Beach, Miami, Florida, are considered to be the two best-preserved Art Deco towns. Beginning in 2007, Napier was nominated as a World Heritage Site with UNESCO. This is the first cultural site in New Zealand to be so nominated. It was denied World Heritage status in 2011 as it did not meet the appropriate criteria. Still, the report of the application acknowledged the Art Deco heritage as "first and foremost of outstanding value to all New Zealanders".
In January 1945, the entered and departed from the port of Napier undetected. This event became the basis of a widely circulated postwar tall tale that the captain of this U-boat, Heinrich Timm, had led crewmen ashore near Napier to milk cows to supplement their meagre rations.
Modern history
Napier was the scene of an armed attack by cannabis dealer Jan Molenaar on three police officers searching his home in May 2009. He killed one officer, and wounded two others and a civilian. He continued to fire shots from his house, which police besieged, until he committed suicide 40 hours later.On 9 November 2020, a local state of emergency was declared in Napier after the region received 237 mm of rainfall across 24 hours – the most daily rainfall in the city since 1963 and the second most since records began. The event caused widespread flooding, slips, power cuts and evacuations.
On 14 February 2023, floods caused by Cyclone Gabrielle destroyed bridges over the Tutaekuri River, and damaged a major regional electrical substation at Redclyffe, which cut power to much of northern Hawke's Bay including its telecommunication infrastructure. Flooding also caused extensive property damage to Esk Valley, Taradale and Meeanee, as well as loss of crops, livestock and several human lives.
Geography and climate
The city is on Napier Hill and the surrounding Heretaunga Plains at the southeastern edge of Hawke Bay, a large semi-circular bay that dominates the east coast of the North Island. The coastline of the city was substantially altered by the earthquake in 1931. About two thirds of Napier's land area is rural.The topography puts Napier in danger from a tsunami, as the centre of the commercial city is near sea level – should the sea ever crest Marine Parade, the sea would run through to Ahuriri. Furthermore, by virtue of its pre-1931 existence, the bulk of Napier is susceptible to soil liquefaction, the risk classed as Very High for the main urban area excluding the hill.
Under the Köppen climate classification, Napier has an oceanic climate. The climate is warm and relatively dry, due to its location on the east coast. Most of New Zealand's weather patterns cross the country from the west, and the city lies in the rain shadow of the North Island Volcanic Plateau and surrounding ranges such as the Kaweka Range.
Suburbs
Suburbs of Napier include:- Ahuriri Ward:
- *Ahuriri
- *Bay View
- *Napier Port
- *Bluff Hill
- *Hospital Hill
- *Onekawa
- *Pandora
- *Westshore
- Nelson Park Ward:
- *Awatoto
- *Maraenui
- *Marewa
- *Napier CBD
- *Napier South
- *Onekawa
- *Pirimai
- Onekawa-Tamatea Ward:
- *Marewa
- *Onekawa
- **Onekawa Central
- **Onekawa West
- *Pirimai
- *Tamatea
- **Tamatea North
- **Tamatea South
- Taradale Ward:
- *Awatoto
- *Greenmeadows
- *Jervoistown
- *Lagoon Farm
- *Meeanee
- *Orutu Park
- *Poraiti
- *Taradale
- **Taradale North
- **Taradale South
- *Te Awa
Demographics
| Nationality | Population |
| England | 2,994 |
| Australia | 1,008 |
| South Africa | 618 |
| India | 543 |
| China | 456 |
| Samoa | 453 |
| Scotland | 420 |
| Philippines | 288 |
| United States | 270 |
| Netherlands | 255 |
Napier City had a population of 64,695 in the 2023 New Zealand census, an increase of 2,454 people since the 2018 census, and an increase of 7,455 people since the 2013 census. There were 31,212 males, 33,270 females and 213 people of other genders in 24,858 dwellings. 2.6% of people identified as LGBTIQ+. The median age was 42.0 years. There were 11,913 people aged under 15 years, 11,115 aged 15 to 29, 27,990 aged 30 to 64, and 13,674 aged 65 or older.
People could identify as more than one ethnicity. The results were 79.0% European ; 24.2% Māori; 4.2% Pasifika; 6.5% Asian; 1.0% Middle Eastern, Latin American and African New Zealanders ; and 2.6% other, which includes people giving their ethnicity as "New Zealander". English was spoken by 96.9%, Māori language by 5.7%, Samoan by 1.3% and other languages by 8.1%. No language could be spoken by 1.8%. New Zealand Sign Language was known by 0.6%. The percentage of people born overseas was 17.9, compared with 28.8% nationally.
Religious affiliations were 30.6% Christian, 0.9% Hindu, 0.4% Islam, 2.7% Māori religious beliefs, 0.8% Buddhist, 0.5% New Age, 0.1% Jewish, and 1.4% other religions. People who answered that they had no religion were 55.8%, and 6.9% of people did not answer the census question.
Of those at least 15 years old, 7,893 people had a bachelor's or higher degree, 29,085 had a post-high school certificate or diploma, and 13,293 people exclusively held high school qualifications. The median income was $39,200, compared with $41,500 nationally. 4,845 people earned over $100,000 compared to 12.1% nationally. The employment status of those at least 15 was that 25,656 people were employed full-time, 6,813 were part-time, and 1,452 were unemployed.
| Name | Area | Population | Density | Dwellings | Median age | Median income |
| Ahuriri Ward | 36.20 | 10,245 | 283 | 4,371 | 50.3 years | $43,700 |
| Onekawa-Tamatea Ward | 5.65 | 10,620 | 1,880 | 4,032 | 37.3 years | $40,800 |
| Nelson Park Ward | 7.58 | 19,320 | 2,549 | 6,744 | 33.4 years | $36,000 |
| Taradale Ward | 55.62 | 24,510 | 441 | 9,714 | 47.8 years | $39,600 |
| New Zealand | 38.1 years | $41,500 |