Kevin's Guide to Nelson, New Zealand - An Introduction to Nelson

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Introduction to Nelson

Nelson is located at the northern end of the South Island of New Zealand, on the south eastern shores of Tasman Bay.
The city of Nelson was founded by British settlers in 1842, just 2 years after the founding of New Zealand and grew initially after gold was found near by. In 1854, Queen Victoria declared Nelson a Cathedral City, making Nelson the second oldest city in New Zealand (only Auckland, New Zealand's largest city today, with a population of over 1 million people, is older). The distinctive Cathedral, made primarily of local marble and concrete, was only finished in the 1960's.

Nelson has a naturally sheltered deep water port and the city is at the economic centre of a large horticultural, agricultural, and fishing region. Nelson also has the fourth busiest airport in the country with over 60 scheduled passenger flights in and out every day with direct flights to six other centres, including the country's three main international airports.

We enjoy one of the best climates in the country, and the region gets the most sunshine hours recorded in New Zealand nearly every year (as well as one of the highest skin cancer rates in the world to go with it). Nelson also enjoys a fairly mild and mainly sunny winter, but we do get good frosts in sheltered areas and snow on the nearby mountains.

Nelson city is north of Wellington, (the capital, situated on the North Island), and is at the centre of the Nelson Province which covers the north west corner of the South Island. The total population in the region is 80,749, with nearly all of the people concentrated in Nelson city (40,914), the large towns of Richmond (7,818) and Motueka (6,330) and the smaller townships of Brightwater (1,011), Wakefield (1,236), and Takaka (1,215), in Golden Bay.
(Nelson and Regional population figures taken from March 1996 Census - the others are taken from the 1991 Census, but these towns have had, on average, a 7% increase since then.)

For more information on things to do, places to stay, how to get around etc., click on the links in the top half of the navigation bar on the left of your screen (they are consistent on every page), or click on the relevant parts of the map below.

If you want to know anything else about the region, get in touch with me, and I will get back to you at the earliest opportunity (usually within a few days), hopefully with all the information you were seeking.

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