Tasman District (Māori: Te Tai o Aorere) is a local government district in the northwest of the South Island of New Zealand. It borders the Canterbury Region, West Coast Region, Marlborough Region and Nelson City. It is administered by the Tasman District Council, a unitary authority, which sits at Richmond, with community boards serving outlying communities in Motueka and Golden Bay / Mohua. The city of Nelson has its own unitary authority separate from Tasman District, and together they comprise a single region in some contexts, but not for local government functions or resource management (planning) functions.

Name

Tasman Bay, the largest indentation in the north coast of the South Island, was named after Dutch seafarer, explorer and merchant Abel Tasman. He was the first European to discover New Zealand on 13 December 1642 while on an expedition for the Dutch East India Company. Tasman Bay passed the name on to the adjoining district, which was formed in 1989 largely from the merger of Waimea and Golden Bay counties.

History

 

According to tradition, the Māori waka Uruao brought ancestors of the Waitaha people to Tasman Bay in the 12th century. Archaeological evidence suggests that early Māori settlers explored the region thoroughly, settling mainly along the coast where there was ample food.

The succession of tribes into the area suggests considerable warfare interrupted the settlement process. Around 1828, Ngati Toa (under Te Rauparaha) and the allied northern tribes of Ngāti Rārua and Ngāti Tama started their invasion of the South Island. They took over much of the area from Farewell Spit to the Wairau River.

British immigrant ships from England arrived in Nelson in 1842 and European settlement of the region began under the leadership of Captain Arthur Wakefield. From 1853 to 1876 the area of the present-day Tasman District formed part of Nelson Province.

In the 1850s agriculture and pastoral farming started and villages developed on the Waimea Plains and at Motueka. In 1856 the discovery of gold near Collingwood sparked New Zealand’s first gold rush. Significant reserves of iron ore were found at Onekaka, where an ironworks operated during the 1920s and 1930s.

Fruit-growing started at the end of the 19th century. By 1945, it was making a significant contribution to the local economy, and that importance continues today. The District Council website says that Tasman is New Zealand’s main hop-growing area.^{[citation needed]}

As an administrative unit of local government, the Tasman District formed in 1989 within the Nelson-Marlborough Regional Council. The Tasman District Council became a unitary authority in 1992.