Lower Hutt

Lower Hutt and Hutt City have 100,100 inhabitants (2005), the second largest settlement in the Wellington region and is at the mouth of the Hutt River at the Port Nicholson Bay (an inlet of Cook Strait).

About 25km further south of City Council, Wellington City, Porirua and Upper Hutt makes them the agglomeration of Wellington, which is the capital of New Zealand. The city lies at the southern end of the valley of the Hutt River, north of Wellington City. The river valley of the Hutt gets wider away from the sea.

Today’s city center is almost flat in this triangle in the south, the widest side of the Pacific. On the other two sides are hills. The narrowest point of the Taita (Gorge) must be between the hills and the meandering river.

The canyon in the north is on the border with Upper Hutt City Council, in the east it borders the South Wairarapa District, to the south by the sea, to the west the Wellington City Council and to the northwest by Porirua. The city itself has 75,000 inhabitants, the district as a whole – if you are adding on the area around Wainuiomata and Eastbourne – has more than 100,000 inhabitants. Lower Hutt is divided into 32 districts from north to south:

History

Prior to European settlement, the district was largely forested, and the Maori had a few settlements along the coastline. In 1839, a ship reached them and was responsible for the colonization of New Zealand, the area being negotiated with the Maori on the immigration of white settlers.

A year later, the first emigrant ship arrived, the Aurora. Later, the city was named after the river Hutt. This in turn got its name from an important chairman of the New Zealand Company, Sir William Hutt.

A few months after the settlement however, the river flooded the city and the settlers moved to Thorndon, now an inner district of Wellington. In 1846 there was conflict between the Maori and whites, the Pakeha in the New Zealand Wars. The district experienced a boom with the construction of the railway from Wellington in 1874.