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North Island

One of the two main New Zealand islands

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This satellite image of New Zealand's North Island has been cropped from an image of both of New Zealand's main islands. "This stunning true-color image provides a rare, cloud-free look at the island
NASA/GSFC/MODIS Land Rapid Response Team, Jacques Descloitres · Public domain

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There are twelve main urban areas are in the North Island. From north to south, they are Whangārei, Auckland, Hamilton, Tauranga, Rotorua, Gisborne, New Plymouth, Napier, Hastings, Whanganui, Palmerston North, and New Zealand's capital city Wellington, which is located at the south-west tip of the island.

Naming and usage

The island has been known in English as the North Island for many years. The official Māori name for it, Te Ika-a-Māui ("the fish of Māui"), also has official recognition but it remains seldom used by most residents. Other Māori names include Te Ahi no Māui ("the fire of Māui", as first recorded by Captain James Cook in 1770) and Aotearoa ("land of the long white cloud"), which is more frequently applied to New Zealand as a whole. On some 19th-century maps, the North Island was named New Ulster (named after Ulster province in northern Ireland), which was also a province of New Zealand that included the North Island.

In 2009 the New Zealand Geographic Board found that, along with the South Island, the North Island had no official name. After a public consultation, the board officially named it North Island or Te Ika-a-Māui in October 2013. The official Māori name was chosen on the basis that it was "most common and consistent usage in oral tradition by Māori living on the island".

In prose, the two main islands of New Zealand are usually called the North Island and the South Island, including the definite article "the." Maps, headings, tables, and adjectival expressions use North Island without "the". It is also normal to use the preposition in rather than on, for example "Hamilton is in the North Island", "my mother lives in the North Island".

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