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Banks Peninsula is in the Canterbury region on the east coast of the South Island of New Zealand, partly surrounded by the Pacific Ocean, and adjacent to the largest city in the South Island, Christchurch. The peninsula has a land area of approximately 1,000 km². The peninsula, including Lyttelton and neighbouring areas that are not on the peninsula proper, was governed by the Banks Peninsula District Council from 1989 until 6 March 2006 when it was merged with neighbouring Christchurch City Council. The population of the peninsula in 2001 was 7,833 residents (2001 census).

History

Three successive phases of Māori settlement took place on the peninsula which was known to Māori as Horomaka. Waitaha settled there first, followed by Kāti Mamoe and then Ngai Tahu took over in the 17th century.

The crew of Captain James Cook became the first Europeans to sight the peninsula, during Cook's first circumnavigation of New Zealand in 1769, when he named the feature in honour of the Endeavour's botanist, Joseph Banks. The peninsula occasioned one of Cook's two major New Zealand cartographical errors - unable to see the low plains adjoining the peninsula, he charted it as an island. Distracted by a phantom sighting of land to the southeast, he sailed away before exploring any closer and never discovered the two good harbours.

By the 1830s, Banks Peninsula had become a European whaling centre - to the detriment of the Māori, who succumbed in large numbers to disease and inter-tribal warfare exacerbated by the use of muskets. Two significant events in the assumption of British sovereignty over New Zealand occurred at Akaroa. First, in 1830 the Māori settlement at Takapuneke became the scene of a notorious incident. The Captain of the British brig Elizabeth, John Stewart, helped North Island Ngāti Toa chief, Te Rauparaha, to capture the local Ngai Tahu chief, Te Maiharanui. The settlement of Takapuneke was sacked. (Partly as a result of this massacre, the British authorities sent an official British Resident, James Busby, to New Zealand in 1832 in an effort to stop such atrocities. The events at Takapuneke thus led directly to the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi.) Then in 1838 Captain Langlois, a French whaler, decided that Akaroa would make a good settlement to service whaling ships and "purchased" the peninsula in a dubious land deal with the local Māori. He returned to France, floated the Nanto-Bordelaise company, and set sail for New Zealand with a group of French and German families aboard the ship Comte de Paris, with the intention of forming a French colony on a French South Island of New Zealand.

However, by the time Langlois and his colonists arrived at Banks Peninsula in August 1840, many Māori had already signed the Treaty of Waitangi (the signatories including two chiefs at Akaroa in May) and New Zealand's first British Governor, William Hobson, had declared British sovereignty over the whole of New Zealand. On hearing of the French plan for colonisation, Hobson quickly dispatched the HMS Britomart from the Bay of Islands to Akaroa with police magistrates on board. While Langlois and his colonists sheltered from unfavourable winds at Pigeon Bay on the other side of the peninsula, the British raised their flag at Greens Point between Akaroa and Takapuneke and courts of law convened to assert British sovereignty over the South Island.

From the 1850s, Lyttelton and then Christchurch outgrew Akaroa, which has developed into a holiday resort and retained many French influences as well as many of its nineteenth-century buildings.

Historic harbour defence works dating from 1874 onwards survive at Ripapa Island in Lyttelton Harbour, and at Godley Head.

Geology

Banks Peninsula forms the most prominent volcanic feature of the South Island. Geologically, the peninsula comprises the eroded remnants of two large stratovolcanoes (Lyttelton formed first, then Akaroa). These formed due to intraplate volcanism between approximately eleven and eight million years ago (Miocene) on a continental crust. The peninsula formed as offshore islands, with the volcanoes reaching to about 1,500 m above sea level. Two dominant craters formed Lyttelton and Akaroa Harbours. The Canterbury Plains formed from the erosion of the Southern Alps (an extensive and high mountain range caused by the meeting of the Indo-Australian and Pacific tectonic plates) and from the alluvial fans created by large braided rivers. These plains reach their widest point where they meet the hilly sub-region of Banks Peninsula. A layer of loess, a rather unstable fine silt deposited by the föhn winds which bluster across the plains, covers the northern and western flanks of the peninsula. The portion of crater rim lying between Lyttelton Harbour and Christchurch city forms the Port Hills.

Land use

Estimates suggest that native forest once covered 98% of the peninsula. However, Māori and European settlers successively denuded the forest cover and less than 2% remains today, although some reforestation has started. European settlers have planted many English trees, notably walnut.

Several sites off the coast of the peninsula serve for mariculture cultivation of mussels.

A large Marine Mammal Sanctuary, mainly restricting set-net fishing, surrounds much of the peninsula. This has the principle aim of the conservation of Hector's dolphin, the smallest of all dolphin species. Eco-tourism based around the playful dolphins has now become a significant industry in Akaroa.

A relatively small marine reserve called Pohatu centres on Flea Bay on the south-east side of the peninsula.

The Summit Road forms a notable feature on the peninsula. Built in the 1930s, the road is in two sections:

• one section runs along the crest of the Port Hills from Godley Head (the northern head of Lyttelton Harbour) to Gebbies Pass at the head of the harbour
• the other section runs around the crater rim of Akaroa Harbour from 'Hill Top' - the junction with the main Christchurch-Akaroa highway - to a point above Akaroa. Both roads afford spectacular views as well as providing vehicular access to many parks, walkways, and other recreational features.

Tourism

A popular attraction for trampers/bushwalkers is the Banks Peninsula Track.

Statistics

• Highest point: Mount Herbert (919 m)
• Permanent population : 7600

External links

• Now part of Christchurch City
• 2001 census results, Banks Peninsula District