31 July: Christchurch, New Zealand

On 31 July 1856, Christchurch, New Zealand was chartered as a city. Here are some things you might not know about Christchurch.

1. Christchurch is the oldest city in New Zealand.
2. It is the largest city on the South Island and the third largest in the country as a whole, with a population of around 388,400 in 2018.
3. The first people to live in the area were Maori tribes who went there in the 1200s to hunt moa, a now extinct bird. The Waitaha, Ngati Mamoe and Ngai Tahu fought over the land, with the Ngai Tahu eventually winning and controlling it until the Europeans arrived in 1840.
4. The Europeans went there to hunt Whales initially, but in 1848, the Canterbury Association was founded to form a colony in the region which would be made up of Christian pilgrims from England who wanted to build a city around a cathedral and college based on Christ Church, Oxford. Because of this, the name Christchurch was chosen for the colony.
5. The official Maori name for the city is Otautahi, which was adopted in the 1930s. It means "the place of Tautahi", ie the place where a chief of the Ngāi Tahu tribe, Te Potiki Tautahi used to live. Before this official name was adopted, however, the local Maoris called the city Karaitiana, which basically means "Christian".
6. It's also nicknamed the “Garden City” because it has a large park and botannical gardens. Locals have also used the slogan "our city rocks" since an Earthquake in 2010.
7. Christchurch is one of only a few cities in the world to have a nearly exact antipodal city, ie, a city on the exact opposite side of the earth. Christchurch's antipodal city is A Coruña, in Spain.
8. If you plan on going on an expedition to Antarctica, chances are you'll go there via Christchurch. Both Robert Falcon Scott and Ernest Shackleton departed from the port of Lyttelton in Christchurch, and in more recent times Christchurch International Airport is the departure point for Antarctic explorers from the USA, Italy and, indeed, New Zealand itself.
9. The city has coastlines along the Pacific Ocean and the estuaries of the Avon and Heathcote Rivers. There are also a number of Ski resorts and national parks in the nearby Southern Alps, so tourism is an important part of the city's economy.
10. Christchurch has often hit the news for the wrong reasons. In 1947, the worst Fire disaster in New Zealand took place in a department store there, in which 41 people died. In 2011, a magnitude 6.3 earthquake in which 185 people were killed and many more were injured. Many historic buildings, including the cathedral, were damaged. In 2019 there were two terrorist attacks on mosques in Christchurch, in which 51 people lost their lives.