Hamilton NZ Hotels

Hamilton is the centre of New Zealand's fourth largest urban area, and Hamilton City is the country's seventh largest territorial authority. Hamilton is in the Waikato region of the North Island, approximately 130 km south of Auckland. It sits at a major road and rail nexus in the centre of the Waikato basin, on both banks of the Waikato River. The area now covered by the city was originally the site of a handful of Mâori villages, including Pukete and Kirikiriroa, from which the city takes its Mâori name. By the time British settlers arrived after 1863, most of these villages, which sat beside the Waikato River, were abandoned. Missionaries arrived in the area in the 1830s. At the end of the Waikato Campaign in the New Zealand Wars the four regiments of the Waikato Militia were settled as a peace-keeping force across the region. The 1st Regiment was at Tauranga, the 2nd at Pirongia, the 3rd at Cambridge and the 4th at Hamilton. The settlement founded on 24 August, 1864 and named after Captain John Charles Fane Hamilton, the popular Scottish commander of HMS Esk, who was killed in the battle of Gate Pa, Tauranga. The road from Auckland reached Hamilton in 1867 and the railway in December 1877 the same month Hamilton became a borough. Hamilton reached 1,000 people in 1900 Hamilton was proclaimed a city in 1945. The city is near the southernmost navigable reach of the Waikato River, amidst New Zealand's richest and now fertile agricultural land that was once largely Raupo and Kahikatea swamp Initially an agricultural service centre, it now has a growing and diverse economy. Community archives and historic photograph collections are maintained and are available at Hamilton City Libraries.