Rotorua

Te Arawa trace their presence here to the canoe of that name, captained by Tamatekapua, which made landfall at Maketu on the Bay of Plenty coast; his descendant Īhenga is said to have discovered the lake and named it Te Rotorua-nui-a-Kahumatamomoe. Hapū settled the shore and the islands, and Ohinemutu grew as a village where the boiling pools were used for cooking, washing and heating. The local right to host and guide visitors, held by particular hapū, is old and still contested and respected today.

Tourism began in the 1870s, when parties travelled from Auckland to see the Pink and White Terraces on Lake Rotomahana, guided by Tūhourangi from Te Wairoa. Mount Tarawera erupted on 10 June 1886, destroying the terraces, burying Te Wairoa and other villages and killing about 120 people. Survivors moved to Whakarewarewa, which became the new centre of guiding, and figures such as Guide Sophia and Mākereti Papakura became internationally known.

The government then built Rotorua as a spa town under its own Department of Tourist and Health Resorts, laying out the Government Gardens, planting the avenues and opening the elaborate Bath House in 1908 to offer mineral cures. The town grew on land leased from Ngāti Whakaue to the government, and did not become a borough with its own council until 1922. Forestry arrived with the planting of the surrounding pine and redwood forests from the early twentieth century, and forestry is still one of the district's largest industries. Mass tourism followed the car and the aeroplane, and since the 1990s mountain biking, adventure activities and Māori cultural tourism have joined the geysers as the reasons people come.

No New Zealand city puts Māori culture as far forward as Rotorua. Te Arawa hapū own and run many of the city's attractions, kapa haka is performed professionally for visitors year-round, and the carving and weaving school at Whakarewarewa trains students from iwi across the country in traditional forms. Pōwhiri, hongi and waiata are part of ordinary commercial life here in a way visitors elsewhere may only glimpse, and te reo Māori is widely spoken.

The city is equally shaped by its spa inheritance. The Edwardian Bath House, the croquet lawn, the Blue Baths of 1933 and the gardens belong to a period when Rotorua was promoted as a health resort on an imperial circuit, and public bathing in mineral water continues at pools around the lakefront. The smell of hydrogen sulphide, which residents stop noticing, is part of local identity and the source of a great many jokes.

Outdoors, it is a sports town. The Redwoods trail network has made it a mountain-biking capital, with international competition each year; trout fishing on the lakes and streams is a serious pursuit, as is rafting the Kaituna rapids. Rugby, league and touch are followed closely, and the marathon around the lake is a long-standing annual fixture. Forestry and tourism workers, students at the local polytechnic and a large seasonal population give the small city a mixed, unpretentious feel.

About 58,500 people live in Rotorua, the country's thirteenth largest urban area, and more again in the wider lakes district. At the 2023 census 46 per cent of residents identified as Māori, one of the highest proportions of any New Zealand city, and the population also includes long-established Indian, Chinese and Pacific communities and seasonal workers in forestry and tourism. Housing spreads around the lake's southern and western shores, from the older streets near Ohinemutu and Whakarewarewa to the suburbs strung round the lake at Ngongotahā and out to the east.

Tourism and forestry are the twin pillars of the economy: hotels, attractions, guiding and hospitality on one side, and on the other the pine plantations, sawmills, wood processing and the research institutes that grew up with them. Geothermal energy heats homes, motels and public buildings through bores, which is cheap but tightly regulated: heavy drawing-off weakened the geysers, and in 1987–88 more than a hundred bores within 1.5 kilometres of Pōhutu were cemented shut, after which the geyser became more active again.

The day starts early and the centre empties in the evening except along the main restaurant strip. Weekends go to the lakes, the forest, fishing, sport and family gatherings, and the marae remains the focus of community life for many. Current local issues include housing shortages and the long-term use of motels for emergency accommodation, the water quality of the district's lakes, and a reliance on visitor numbers that swings with the seasons.

The hāngī is the city's signature meal, and Rotorua's version is distinctive: as well as the earth oven, food is cooked in the natural steam of the thermal ground, so pork, chicken, lamb, kūmara, potato, pumpkin and stuffing come out faintly mineral-scented and very soft. It is usually served with rēwena, a slightly sour Māori bread raised with a fermented potato starter, and followed by steamed pudding. At Whakarewarewa, families still boil sweetcorn and kūmara in the pools and sell them at the gate, and eggs are cooked the same way.

Freshwater food matters more here than on the coast. Rainbow trout fill the lakes and rivers, and restaurants will prepare fish that anglers bring in themselves. Kōura, the small freshwater crayfish, was among the traditional Māori foods gathered from these lakes, which also hold eels, and the geothermal ground gave Te Arawa a way of cooking that needed no fire at all.

The surrounding farmland and orchards supply lamb, beef, milk, honey, avocados, berries and — from the Bay of Plenty over the hill — kiwifruit. In the city itself the eating is casual and international: the restaurants of the centre run from Japanese, Indian, Thai and Italian kitchens to steak houses, pizza places and craft breweries. Coffee is taken as seriously as anywhere in the country.