NZ 2024| Driving in NZ west coast New Plymouth

New Plymouth (Māori: Ngāmotu) is the major city of the Taranaki region on the west coast of the North Island of New Zealand. It is named after the English city of Plymouth, in Devon, from where the first English settlers to New Plymouth migrated. The New Plymouth District, which includes New Plymouth City and several smaller towns, is the 10th largest district (out of 67) in New Zealand, and has a population of 88,900 – about two-thirds of the total population of the Taranaki Region and 1.7% of New Zealand’s population. This includes New Plymouth City (59,600), Waitara (7,550), Inglewood (3,870), Ōakura (1,730), Ōkato (561) and Urenui (429).[2]

The city itself is a service centre for the region’s principal economic activities, including intensive pastoral activities (mainly dairy farming) as well as oil, natural gas and petrochemical exploration and production. It is also the region’s financial centre as the home of the TSB Bank (formerly the Taranaki Savings Bank), the largest of the remaining non-government New Zealand-owned banks.

Notable features are the botanic garden (i.e. Pukekura Park), the critically acclaimed Len Lye Centre and Art Gallery, the 13 km (8.1 mi) New Plymouth Coastal Walkway alongside the Tasman Sea, the Len Lye-designed 45-metre-tall (148 ft) artwork known as the Wind Wand, Paritutu Rock, and views of Mount Taranaki.

New Plymouth was awarded the most liveable city (for a population between 75,000–150,000) by the International Awards for Liveable Communities in 2021. In 2023, New Plymouth was awarded New Zealand’s most beautiful small city by Keep New Zealand Beautiful.[3] It also won multiple awards in 2008. The city was in 2010 chosen as one of two walking & cycling “Model Communities” by the government. Based on New Plymouth’s already positive attitude towards cyclists and pedestrians, the city received $3.71m to invest into infrastructure and community programmes to boost walking and cycling.[4]

History
Main article: History of New Plymouth
The area where New Plymouth was founded had for centuries been the home for several Māori iwi (tribes). From about 1823, the Māori began having contact with European whalers as well as traders who arrived by schooner to buy flax.[5]

In 1828 Richard “Dicky” Barrett (1807–47) set up a trading post at Ngāmotu after arriving on the trading vessel Adventure. Barrett traded with the local Māori and helped negotiate the purchase of land from them on behalf of the New Zealand Company. Settlers were selected by the Plymouth Company, which was set up to attract emigrants from the West Country of England, and which took over land initially purchased by the New Zealand Company. The grid plan for the town’s streets was laid out by surveyor Frederic Carrington.[6] The first of the town’s settlers arrived on the William Bryan, which anchored off the coast on 31 March 1841. A series of disputes over ownership and settlement of land developed between Māori and settlers soon after and New Plymouth became a fortified garrison town in 1860–1861 as more than 3500 Imperial soldiers, as well as local volunteers and militia, fought Māori in the First Taranaki War.