Hamilton - City of New Zealand

Hamilton is the centre of New Zealand's fourth largest urban area, and Hamilton City is the country's seventh largest territorial authority. Hamilton is in the Waikato region of the North Island, approximately 130 km south of Auckland. It sits at a major road and rail nexus in the centre of the Waikato basin, on both banks of the Waikato River.

The area now covered by the city was originally the site of a handful of Maori villages, including Kirikiriroa from which the city takes its Maori name. By the time British settlers arrived, most of these villages, which sat beside the Waikato River, were abandoned. Missionaries arrived in the area in the 1830s.

At the end of the Waikato Campaign in the New Zealand Wars the four regiments of the Waikato Militia were settled as a peace-keeping force across the region. The 1st Regiment was at Tauranga, the 2nd at Pirongia, the 3rd at Cambridge and the 4th at Hamilton. The settlement founded on 24 August, 1864 and named after Captain John Charles Fane Hamilton, the popular Scottish commander of HMS Esk, who was killed in the battle of Gate Pa, Tauranga.

The centre of the city, on the Waikato River, is a bustling retail precinct. The entertainment area is quite vibrant due to the large student population. The 2008 Lonely planet guide states that "the city's main street has sprouted a sophisticated and vibrant stretch of bars and eateries that on the weekend at least leave Auckland's Viaduct Harbour for dead in the boozy fun stakes." Hamilton has the second-largest collection of cafés in the country—second only to Ponsonby Road in Auckland[citation needed]. However, Hamilton still struggles with the arguably undeserved nickname of 'Cowtown' due to its origins as a rural service centre. A more common nickname is "Hamiltron: the city the future".

In 2004, Hamilton City Council honored former resident Richard O'Brien with a life-size bronze statue of him as Riff Raff in his space suit, from The Rocky Horror Picture Show. The statue was designed by WETA Workshops, who had done the props for the Lord of the Rings films. It stands on the former site of the Embassy Cinema, where Richard watched science fiction-double features.

Hamilton is home to more than 25,000 tertiary students, mostly enrolled in one of the city's three main tertiary institutes, the University of Waikato, Waikato Institute of Technology and Te Wananga o Aotearoa. As well as state and private primary, intermediate and high schools, it also notably includes a number of Kura Kaupapa Maori primary schools offering education in the Maori language. A complete list of schools in Hamilton city can be found here.