Talk:North Island

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Where did this version of the Maui myth come from? It is not what I've heard.

"The Pandyas of South India were obsessed with naming their land parts too based on fish parts." - is this relevant to this article? RickK 02:44 29 Jun 2003 (UTC)

No, and stupid to boot. - Montréalais 06:38, 26 Aug 2003 (UTC)

• The chopped-up fish story is pretty much in line with what I remember reading. :robinp 08:27, 18 Mar 2004 (UTC)

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It needs more towns. Someone could start with the local government page.:robinp 21:19, 19 Feb 2004 (UTC)

ALTERNATIVELY - we already have a page called List of towns in New Zealand, so maybe we should use it as the only long list, adding "SI" to the end of the (smaller number of) towns that are South Island?:robinp 21:16, 26 Feb 2004 (UTC)

I originally added the list of towns. However now I think that it is probably not a good idea to have such a list on this article as there are just so many. I think only of cities and regions should be listed. Then the towns can be listed in each region article. See Waikato for an example of such a list. -- Popsracer 13:01, 18 Mar 2004 (UTC)

I agree that it is probably not a good idea to try to have a comprehensive list within this article. I like Robin's alternative suggestion to add an North Island/South Island indicator to the List of towns in NZ. Bkonrad | Talk

well then some one get thier act together and delet ituser:kiwiclipart 20:17, 1 september 2007

Definite article

222.154.49.45 (talk · contribs) has changed the sentence

In prose, the two main islands of New Zealand are called the North Island and the South Island, with the definite articles.

to

In prose, the two main islands of New Zealand are correctly called North Island and South Island.

and removed the word "the" before North Island in many places in the article.

It is my experience that the islands are usually referred to as "the North Island" and "the South Island", even though the article is not part of the name, and referring to them only as "North Island" and "South Island" reads oddly. The South Island article has not been similarly changed.-gadfium 19:28, 29 December 2013 (UTC)

Using "North Island" or "South Island" without the definite article reads no more oddly than "White Island", (which is an active volcanic island off the Bay of Plenty coast). I did add the word 'correct' in my edit. In my experience the only people who use the terms North Island and South Island are tourists - who haven't been corrupted by the locals! - but they are the correct names for the two main islands in New Zealand. Just as an aside, they have been called New Ulster and New Munster, and North, Middle (the current South Island), and South Island (which is now Stewart Island). — Preceding unsigned comment added by 222.154.49.45 (talk) 22:06, 10 January 2014 (UTC)

It's not Wikipedia's role to promote a prescriptivist agenda, based on a recent non-arthrous naming by the NZ Geographic Board, but rather to describe the world as it really is.

The customary terms for the two principal islands of New Zealand have included a definite article for well over a century.

I say "terms" rather than "names", because it's arguable that they are not actually names, but simply designations; this is illustrated by the usage The North and South Islands. But whether they are names or merely designations, the weight of history and current usage overwhelmingly favours including the. Martin Kealey (talk) 07:30, 24 February 2018 (UTC)

The list of "Cities and towns"

I just reverted someone's edit that would have changed the "Wellington" link from "Wellington city" to "Wellington", because this list also contains other cities in the greater Wellington region: Porirua, Lower Hutt, Upper Hutt. But then I realized that this list is not consistent about how it handles cities within greater Auckland. In particular, it links just to "Auckland" (as the largest city), but then also links to "Hibiscus Coast" and "Pukekohe" - both of which are under the governance of the Auckland Council (and are thus part of the Auckland 'super city'). I think that "Hibiscus Coast" and "Pukekohe" should probably be removed from this list, because they're part of the Auckland 'super city', and because their populations are already counted in the total for "Auckland" Does anyone have any objections to this? Ross Finlayson (talk) 14:10, 21 December 2018 (UTC)

@Rsfinlayson: It depends on what we're trying to say here. Your revert changed back to the narrow definition of Wellington's city environs, but now you're trying to include outlying parts of Auckland into Auckland itself. That's not consistent. So we need to determine what we're trying to say. With increasing urban spread, Hibiscus Coast has become a suburb of Auckland, so it really should be removed from the list. Note that it has never been a city in its own right. However, if we were to base the list on the Auckland Council ruled area, we would have to include Wellsford and Warkworth, which would be absurd to most Aucklanders as they are small townships far to the north of the suburbs and separated by rolling farm country. The same thing applies to Pukekohe, which is Auckland Council ruled, but is a town that is not contiguous with Auckland's suburbs. There needs to be a debate here about what to include. A side issue is that even on the present state of the list, the population figures are wrong. Akld guy (talk) 20:02, 21 December 2018 (UTC)

Yes, the reason why I'm suggesting not being 'consistent' in the treatment of Auckland and Wellington - i.e., including only "Auckland" on the list, but including "Wellington" (city), "Porirua", and the "Hutt"s - is that Auckland is a 'super city', but Wellington is not (right?). But the concept of 'super city' is rather vague, and perhaps rather silly in this case - because the Auckland Council also rules Great Barrier Island, which is perhaps the most rural part of NZ (it's not even on the power grid!). As an Aucklander, I agree with you that considering Warkworth and (especially) Wellsford to be part of Auckland sounds silly; fortunately, they're not yet large enough to be considered on this list. The Hibiscus Coast is definitely considered to be part of Auckland now. Pukekohe is on the edge (pun intended), but should be removed in any case if its population is counted as part of Auckland's. Ross Finlayson (talk) 20:13, 21 December 2018 (UTC)

The list appears to be based on this StatsNZ chart, which defines the urban areas listed. Akld guy (talk) 20:19, 21 December 2018 (UTC)

Perhaps - though that chart doesn't include "Hibiscus Coast". Ross Finlayson (talk) 23:32, 21 December 2018 (UTC)

I meant that the cited ref goes to a generic StatsNZ site. Possibly it was originally more specific but StatsNZ has changed the link. By digging around, I found the link I cited. Akld guy (talk) 01:43, 22 December 2018 (UTC)