Kawhia Harbour
bight in New Zealand
Kawhia Harbour (Māori: Kāwhia) is one of three large natural inlets in the Tasman Sea coast of the Waikato region of New Zealand's North Island. It is located to the south of Raglan Harbour, Ruapuke and Aotea Harbour, 40 kilometres southwest of Hamilton. Kawhia is part of the Ōtorohanga District and is in the King Country. It has a high-tide area of 68 km2 (26 mi2) and a low-tide area of 18 km2 (6.9 mi2). Te Motu Island is located in the harbour.
The settlement of Kawhia is located on the northern coast of the inlet, and was an important port in early colonial New Zealand. The area of Kawhia comprises 16 to 20 hectares (40 to 50 acres) and is the town block that was owned by the New Zealand Government. The government bought it from the Europeans in 1880 "not from the original Māori owners, but from a European who claimed ownership in payment of money owed by another European".
History and culture
Early history
Kawhia Harbour is the southernmost location where kauri trees historically grew.
Kawhia is known in Māori lore as the final resting-place of the ancestral waka (canoe) Tainui.
The public source identifies “Kawhia Harbour” as bight in New Zealand. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Kawhia, Harbour and bight.
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This entry incorporates text from “Kawhia Harbour” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.