Nelson

The district was known to Māori as Whakatū, and the iwi of Te Tau Ihu — including Ngāti Toa, Te Āti Awa, Ngāti Rārua, Ngāti Tama and Ngāti Kuia — held the bays, the haven and the plains, having reached the top of the South Island through the upheavals of the 1820s and 1830s. The sheltered water behind the Boulder Bank had long been a source of fish and shellfish and a stopping place on coastal journeys.

Nelson was the New Zealand Company's second settlement. Ships carrying British migrants arrived in 1841 and 1842 to a town site chosen in haste, with far less usable land than promised, and early years were hungry. In 1843 a dispute over the company's claim to the Wairau Valley led an armed settler party to try to arrest the Ngāti Toa chiefs Te Rauparaha and Te Rangihaeata; in the clash that followed, 22 settlers and four Māori were killed, an event that shook the young colony. Nelson received city status in 1858 and, despite losing the provincial influence it once had, became the commercial centre of the top of the south.

Its later story is one of fruit, fish and art. Orchards and hop gardens spread across the Waimea plains and the Moutere hills, the port grew into one of the country's biggest fishing bases, and forestry and horticulture followed. Nelson College, opened in 1856, is the oldest state secondary school in the country, and the physicist Ernest Rutherford was one of its pupils. From the 1960s craftspeople settled in the region for its climate and cheap land, and the World of WearableArt show began in Nelson in 1987 before moving to Wellington.

Nelson calls itself an arts city and can largely justify it. Potters, jewellers, glassblowers, weavers and painters work throughout the region, selling from studios and galleries and at the Saturday market, and the Suter has shown New Zealand art since the 1890s. The Nelson Arts Festival in October is the year's cultural high point, and the World of WearableArt's local origins are still a point of pride.

Life is organised around the outdoors and the climate. Sunshine hours are quoted competitively against other cities, the beach at Tāhunanui functions as a public park, and weekends go to tramping, mountain biking, sailing, kayaking and fishing. The region's produce — hops and craft beer, wine, apples, berries, scallops and mussels — fills markets and festivals, and a strong local-food culture links growers to restaurants.

Underneath the holiday image is a working provincial city: fishing crews, packhouses, seasonal orchard workers from the Pacific Islands and beyond, and long-established farming families. Iwi of Te Tau Ihu run businesses in fishing, forestry and property, and te reo Māori names and greetings are in general use. Manners are informal and understated, and newcomers are expected to muck in with clubs, school fairs and volunteer conservation work.

About 55,000 people live in Nelson city and roughly 110,000 in the wider Nelson and Tasman districts, including Richmond, Motueka and the smaller towns. Housing is mostly detached, on the flat around Tāhunanui and Stoke and on the hills behind the centre, where views come with steep driveways. Richmond has taken much of the recent growth, and the built-up area now runs almost unbroken between the two.

Work comes from seafood, horticulture and forestry, and from health, education, building and tourism. The port handles fish, logs and fruit, packhouses run hard from summer into autumn, and the hop harvest in February and March draws attention from brewers worldwide. Nelson also has a notably large population of retired people and a steady flow of newcomers escaping bigger cities, which keeps house prices high relative to local wages.

The rhythm is early and outdoors: the market on Saturday morning, sport for children at weekends, evening walks on the beach or the Grampians, and boats out of the haven whenever the weather allows. Local worries include housing affordability and rentals for seasonal workers, pressure on the hospital, the risk of drought and wildfire in a dry, sunny region, and the damage that storms and floods have done to roads and rivers in recent years.

Seafood comes first. Nelson's fleet lands hoki, snapper, tarakihi, gurnard and squid, Tasman Bay and the Sounds supply green-lipped mussels and farmed salmon, and scallops, when the beds allow, are a local delicacy. Smoked fish from Māpua's smokehouse, fish and chips on Wakefield Quay and a bag of mussels steamed at home are all standard Nelson meals.

The land supplies the rest. The Waimea plains and Moutere hills grow apples, pears, kiwifruit, boysenberries, raspberries and stone fruit, sold at roadside stalls through summer, and olive oil, goat's cheese and honey come from the same valleys. Hops have been grown around Nelson and Motueka since the settlement's early years, and varieties bred there, such as Nelson Sauvin and Motueka, have become famous among brewers, with a high concentration of small breweries in the region. Vineyards nearby make chardonnay, pinot noir and aromatic whites, lighter in style than Marlborough's.

In the city itself the cooking is modern New Zealand with a strong café culture: brunch, flat whites, bakeries, wood-fired pizza and restaurants built around market produce, plus Asian, Indian and Mediterranean kitchens. Hāngī and seafood boils appear at community events, and summer ends with cherries, plums and ice cream eaten on the beach.