CACrown ArchivesThe cinema collection
Menu
Research dossier · Places & Architecture

Whangapoua Beach

beach on Great Barrier Island, New Zealand

Architectural plans, a scale model, maps and brass measuring instruments
Places and architectureInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionApr 12, 2024
Entity authorityQ49325278 ↗
Source-derived summary

Whangapoua Beach is on the east coast of Great Barrier Island in New Zealand's Hauraki Gulf. The beach runs roughly north–south and has views of Rakitu Island. The Whangapoua Creek drains large estuarine wetlands and enters the sea at the southern end of the beach.

A Department of Conservation camping ground is on the southern side of the estuary, adjacent to Okiwi Airfield. It is staffed between Christmas Day and Auckland Anniversary Day every year. Dogs are banned from the campsite, and there are no rubbish or recycling facilities. There is access to the northern part of the beach from Mabey Road.

The beach is a surfing spot with a bar break at the mouth of the creek and beach breaks along the length of the beach. The bar break is accessed by walking across the estuary flats from the camping ground.

The nearest settlement is the small locality of Ōkiwi, to the west, at the head of the estuary.

Editorial summary

“Whangapoua Beach” enters the record as beach on Great Barrier Island, New Zealand. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Whangapoua, Beach and beach can confirm, complicate or overturn.

Editorial reviewMost useful as a place-based finding aid connecting the present description to earlier jurisdictions, maps and built evidence. The current 160-word lead offers orientation but no explicit four-digit date, so chronology should not be assumed. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. Its strongest next move is a source search built around Whangapoua, Beach and beach.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

“Whangapoua Beach” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Whangapoua, Beach and beach provides the most credible route into that argument.

Evidence profile

The strongest evidence will usually combine a dated visual record with documents produced by the authority responsible for the place. The source revision retrieved here is dated Apr 12, 2024. The linked authority identifier is Q49325278. Authority coordinates are -36.128, 175.423. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank.

Critical limits

A single description cannot reconcile every naming convention, rebuilding phase or administrative transfer associated with a place. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Treat names, boundaries and functions as historically changeable. Maps, plans, inventories and administrative records can clarify what the place meant at different dates.

Best used for
  • Historic place names
  • Jurisdictional context
  • Routes into maps and plans
Verify next

Contemporary maps, plans, listed-building records, estate papers and the responsible local or national archive.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Whangapoua Beach”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Whangapoua Beach primary sources, Whangapoua Beach archive and Whangapoua research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Whangapoua Beach”?
  2. Which authority defined the place, boundary or structure at the relevant date?
  3. Which earlier names or jurisdictions may reveal additional records?
Subject index

Search terms from this dossier

Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Whangapoua Beach” 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.