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The Auckland metropolitan area in the North Island of New Zealand, is the largest and most populous urban area in the country with a population of over 1.4 million residents, 31 percent of the country´s population. Demographic trends indicate that it will continue to grow faster than the rest of the country. Increasingly cosmopolitan, Auckland also has the largest Polynesian population of any city in the world, and has seen many people of Asian ethnicity move there in the last two decades. In Máori Auckland´s name is Támaki-makau-rau, or the transliterated version of Auckland, ákarana.
The 2010 Mercer Quality of Living Survey ranked Auckland 4th equal place in the world on its list, while The Economist´s World´s Most Livable Cities index of 2010 ranked Auckland in 10th place. In 2008, Auckland was classified as an Alpha-City in the World Cities Study Group´s inventory by Loughborough University, the only one in the country.
Auckland lies between the Hauraki Gulf of the Pacific Ocean to the east, the low Hunua Ranges to the south-east, the Manukau Harbour to the south-west, and the Waitakere Ranges and smaller ranges to the west and north-west. The central part of the urban area occupies a narrow isthmus between the Manukau Harbour on the Tasman Sea and the Waitemata Harbour on the Pacific Ocean. It is one of the few cities in the world to have harbours on two separate major bodies of water. The Auckland Festival is a biennial event that takes place throughout the Auckland region. It features local and international music, dance, theatre and visual arts.
The Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Támaki, is considered the home of the visual arts in New Zealand with a collection of over 14,000 artworks, including prominent New Zealand artists and has been promised a gift of fifteen works of art by New York art collectors and philanthropists Julian and Josie Robertson - including well-known paintings by Paul Cézanne, Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse, Paul Gauguin and Piet Mondrian. This is the largest gift ever made to an art museum in Australasia. Waiuku is a country town located south of Auckland and is part of the newly created supercity. It is situated at the southern end of the estuarial arm of the Manukau Harbour. 40 kilometres southwest of Auckland city centre, and 12 kilometres north of the mouth of the Waikato River, Waiuku is inspirational home and and heart to to our team at Wham Design.
