Hawke Bay

Hawke Bay is a large bay on the east coast of the North Island of New Zealand. It stretches from Mahia Peninsula in the northeast to Cape Kidnappers in the southwest, a distance of some 100 kilometres.

Captain James Cook, sailing in HM Bark Endeavour, sailed into the bay on 12 October 1769. After exploring it, he named it for Sir Edward Hawke, First Lord of the Admiralty, on 15 October 1769, describing it as some 13 leagues (about 40 miles) across.

This part of the New Zealand coast is subject to tectonic uplift, with the land being raised out of the sea. For this reason, the coastal land in this area has significant marine deposits, with both marine and land dinosaur fossils having been found inland. The Napier earthquake of 3 February 1931 resulted in several parts of the seabed close to the city of Napier being raised above sea level.

Because the central mountain ranges come close to the coast at the north end of the bay, much of the bay's northerly coastline has deeply eroded tablelands that end in steep seaside cliffs which descend to narrow beaches.

Hawke's Bay Region

Coordinates: 39°25′S 176°49′E / 39.417°S 176.817°E / -39.417; 176.817

Hawke's Bay Region (Māori: Heretaunga) is a region of New Zealand on the east coast of the North Island. It is recognised on the world stage for its award-winning wines. Hawke's Bay Regional Council sits in both the cities of Napier and Hastings. It derives from Hawke Bay which was named by Captain James Cook in honour of Admiral Edward Hawke who decisively defeated the French at the Battle of Quiberon Bay in 1759.

Geography

The region is situated on the east coast of the North Island. It bears the former name of what is now Hawke Bay, a large semi-circular bay that extends for 100 kilometres from northeast to southwest from Mahia Peninsula to Cape Kidnappers.

The Hawke's Bay region includes the hilly coastal land around the northern and central bay, the floodplains of the Wairoa River in the north, the wide fertile Heretaunga Plains around Hastings in the south, and a hilly interior stretching up into the Kaweka and Ruahine Ranges.

Hawkes Bay (New Zealand electorate)

Hawke's Bay was a parliamentary electorate in the Hawke's Bay region of New Zealand from 1881 to 1996. In 1986 it was renamed Hawkes Bay (without an apostrophe).

Population centres

The previous electoral redistribution was undertaken in 1875 for the 1875–76 election. In the six years since, New Zealand's European population had increased by 65%. In the 1881 electoral redistribution, the House of Representatives increased the number of European representatives to 91 (up from 84 since the 1875–76 election). The number of Māori electorates was held at four. The House further decided that electorates should not have more than one representative, which led to 35 new electorates being formed, including Hawke's Bay, and two electorates that had previously been abolished to be recreated. This necessitated a major disruption to existing boundaries.

Prior to the 1881 electoral redistribution, the Napier electorate covered not just the town of Napier, but also its rural hinterland. The northern boundary was the 39th latitude, the arbitrary line established in 1853 that formed the boundary between the original Wellington and Auckland Provinces. In 1881, this arbitrary boundary line was abolished, and the East Coast electorate came across this line to the south. Inland, the Hawke's Bay electorate went across the line to the north and took up most of the rural part of the former Napier electorate, but it also went into the area of the Rangitikei electorate, and the town of Hastings was gained from the Clive electorate, which was abolished and replaced with Waipawa. Other settlements that belonged to the Hawke's Bay electorate in its initial shape were Bay View, Fernhill, and Havelock North.