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Editor's note: This is another in a series of articles featuring New Zealand in anticipation of IRA's 18th World Congress on Reading, which will be held in Auckland, July 11-14, 2000. This article includes some information about Auckland. The article also includes additional information about oral language in the New Zealand curriculum by highlighting some practices you are likely to see if you visit local schools after the World Congress.
As the content of the World Congress programme is confirmed, these articles will include more information about the professional side of the World Congress and less about tourist opportunities.
Spotlight on Auckland City
The Maori people of the Tainui canoe were the first to settle in Auckland, about 900 years ago. The narrow isthmus dividing the two sheltered harbours of the Waitemata and the Manukau came to be called Tamaki-makau-rau after a famous warrior. This is now the recognised Maori name for Auckland.
The dozens of volcanic cones and headlands made ideal sites for Maori settlement. Today it is possible to see evidence of this early life in the terraced earthworks and sunken food storage pits in many of the hills that dot the Auckland landscape.
European settlement formally began in 1840. Auckland was New Zealand's capital until 1865, when Wellington became the capital.
Through the years, Auckland has had a steady increase in population. Today, approximately 1.1 million people, or about one third of New Zealand's total population, live in the four major contributing cities: Auckland, Manukau, North Shore, and Waitakere.
Auckland is a truly multiethnic city. As well as the indigenous Maori, the city is home to Pacific Islanders who represent almost every nation of the South Pacific region, and to people from every continent. The multiethnic influence...