Christchurch, known for its English heritage, is located on the east coast of New Zealand’s South Island. Flat-bottomed punts glide on the Avon River, which meanders through the city centre. On its banks are cycling paths, the green expanse of Hagley Park and Christchurch Botanic Gardens.
In 2010 and 2011, earthquakes destroyed many of the historic centre's stone-built buildings. It is home to 404,500 residents,[2] making it New Zealand's third-most populous city behind Auckland and Wellington.
The Avon River flows through the centre of the city, with an urban park located along its banks. At the request of the Deans brothers—whose farm was the earliest settlement in the area—the river was named after the River Avon in Scotland, which rises in the Ayrshire hills near to where their grandfather's farm was located.
The city suffered a series of earthquakes between September 2010 and early 2012, with the most destructive of them occurring at 12.51 p.m. on Tuesday, 22 February 2011, in which 185 people were killed and thousands of buildings across the city collapsed or suffered severe damage. By late 2013, 1,500 buildings in the city had been demolished, leading to an ongoing recovery and rebuilding project.
When we were there in Jan 2019, it felt like 50% of the city was new buildings and another 25% were still being built. there were many empty blocks of land in the CBD, that we presume had buildings on them, but had been cleared and were just being used as car pars for the time being - so getting.a park anywhere was easy.
Lots of great eateries in the CBD have popped up and as I said earlier, they are all quite new buildings. By the time this city has been rebuilt it will be a brand new city for many years to come.
Archaeological evidence has indicated that the Christchurch area was first settled by humans in about 1250. Christchurch became a city by Royal Charter on 31 July 1856, making it officially the oldest established city in New Zealand. The Canterbury Association, which settled the Canterbury Plains, named the city after Christ Church, Oxford. The new settlement was laid out in a grid pattern centred on Cathedral Square; during the 19th century there were few barriers to the rapid growth of the urban area, except for the Pacific to the east and the Port Hills to the south.Agriculture is the historic mainstay of Christchurch's economy.
The early presence of the University of Canterbury and the heritage of the city's academic institutions in association with local businesses has fostered a number of technology-based industries.
