New Plymouth

Taranaki was settled by Māori many centuries ago, and the area around the present city, known as Ngāmotu for the islands off its shore, was held by Te Āti Awa, with pā on the headlands and on the Sugar Loaf Islands themselves. In the 1820s and 1830s much of the population left or was displaced during the intertribal musket wars, and many Te Āti Awa moved south to the Wellington region, a migration that later complicated questions of who could sell land.

The Plymouth Company of the New Zealand Company landed its first settlers from Devon and Cornwall in 1841, naming the town after their home port. Their land purchases were disputed by returning Māori owners, and pressure for more land grew. In 1860 the government's insistence on a contested sale at Waitara brought war to the district: fighting spread across Taranaki through the 1860s, settlers sheltered behind stockades in New Plymouth, and large areas of Māori land were confiscated afterwards. At Parihaka, south of the city, the leaders Te Whiti o Rongomai and Tohu Kākahi mounted a campaign of non-violent resistance until troops invaded the village in 1881.

Dairying made the region prosperous once the bush was cleared, and the port built at Moturoa, with its long breakwater, gave the west coast its only deep-water harbour. From 1970 the Kapuni gas field and, later in that decade, the offshore Maui field turned New Plymouth into the centre of New Zealand's oil and gas industry, and engineering and energy firms still line the eastern approaches. Since the 1990s the city has spent heavily on its waterfront, its parks and its galleries, and the decline of the Maui field has pushed local debate towards what comes after gas.

For a city of its size New Plymouth has an unusual amount of art. The Govett-Brewster opened in 1970 as a contemporary gallery when few provincial towns had one, and the Len Lye Centre beside it houses the work of the Taranaki-born artist and filmmaker whose kinetic sculptures also stand on the foreshore as the Wind Wand. Public sculpture, murals and the design of the Coastal Walkway's bridges are part of the same civic habit.

Music and gardens shape the calendar. WOMAD brings musicians from around the world to the Bowl of Brooklands each March, large touring acts play the same stage in summer, and Pukekura Park is lit for the Festival of Lights through the holidays. Spring belongs to the garden festival, a regional institution built on the volcanic soil and high rainfall that make rhododendrons and camellias thrive.

Māori history is close to the surface. Te Āti Awa and the other Taranaki iwi maintain marae across the district, the confiscations of the 1860s and the events at Parihaka are taught and commemorated, and the mountain's restoration to the name Taranaki Maunga and its recognition in law as a legal person in 2025 were widely marked. Surfing along the black-sand coast, provincial rugby in amber and black, and dairy-farming family networks make up the rest of the local identity.

About 60,000 people live in New Plymouth and around 90,000 in the wider district, which makes it the major city of the Taranaki region. Most housing is single-storey and detached, spreading east through Waiwhakaiho and Bell Block, west to Moturoa and Spotswood, and up the inner hills of Vogeltown and Westown, with the newest subdivisions on former farmland at the edges.

The economy rests on three legs: dairy processing and farm services, energy and engineering, and the public sector of hospital, schools and council, with tourism and retail growing. Fonterra's plants in the region take milk from thousands of farms, the port ships logs, dairy products and petrochemicals, and the energy sector has been shrinking as gas fields decline — a source of anxiety about skilled jobs. Many workers commute in from the smaller Taranaki towns.

The day is early and outdoors. The Coastal Walkway is busy with runners, cyclists and dog walkers before work, surfers check the beaches on the way in, and weekends go to sport, the parks, the mountain or a barbecue. Rain arrives often and briefly, so plans are made loosely. Housing costs have risen faster than incomes, pressure on the hospital and on rentals is a standing complaint, and coastal erosion and the future of the energy industry are the issues that fill local meetings.

Taranaki is dairy country, and the region's identity is bound up with milk. Its processing plants are among the largest in the country, and local cheese, butter, cream and ice cream are staples rather than specialities; farm-gate and market stalls sell them alongside eggs, honey and vegetables grown on the rich volcanic soils. The mild, wet climate also suits berries and stone fruit in summer.

From the sea come snapper, kahawai, gurnard, trevally and, in season, crayfish and pāua taken from the rocky coast under strict limits. Whitebait, the tiny young of native fish, are netted in the river mouths in spring and eaten in fritters bound with egg — a west coast ritual as much as a dish. Fish and chips eaten on the breakwater or by the sea is the classic local supper.

The city's own cooking is modern New Zealand: café brunches, flat whites, sourdough and eggs on Devon Street, wood-fired pizza and small-plate restaurants near the foreshore, and pubs serving steaks, lamb and burgers with Taranaki beef. Craft breweries have opened in and around the city, and one long-standing Taranaki brewery has been making beer in the region for generations. Māori kai appears at hui and festivals — hāngī cooked in the ground, kina, mussels and pork and puha — and WOMAD each March fills Pukekura Park with food stalls from around the world.