Edgecumbe

State Highway 2 and the Taneatua branch railway leads through the village of Edgecumbe, located in Whakatane District of the Bay of Plenty region on the North Island of New Zealand.  It is 15 kilometers west of Whakatane, and eight miles south of the coast of the Bay of Plenty Bay.

Edgecumbe is the service center for the agricultural region around the level of the Rangitaiki River, which flows through the town.  It has a dairy factory belonging the Fonterra group, a college and a shopping center.
The city censuses show Edgecumbe with 1,626 permanent residents in 2006.  There were 1,668 inhabitants in 2001, and 1,764 in 1996.
On March 2,1987 an earthquake shook Edgecumbe; the epicenter was 15 kilometers northwest of the Edgecumbe Bay of Plenty.  It caused significant damage, affecting half the houses in Edgecumbe.  The strength of the quake was 6.3 on the Richter scale.  A consequence of the Edgecumbe earthquake was a seven-kilometer-long crack in the Rangitaiki Plains.  This is known as the Edgecumbe Fault.  The land in the vicinity of the trench was cut by up to two meters.
In 2005 a flood destroyed many houses.  During this flood the river was only five centimeters below the crown of the dikes that had been built seven years earlier.
Fifteen kilometers south of the city, in Kawerau, the volcanic cone of Mount Edgecumbe is visible from Edgecumbe.
In addition Edgecumbe is home to rugby and hockey teams, as well as the Plains Rangers football team, part of the AFC.