What is the smallest city in your country that everyone can still instantly recognise the name of? What is it famous for?
In the United States, I'd probably name Oregon City, the famous end of the Oregon Trail and the first city founded west of the Rocky Mountains during the pioneer era. Its population is only 37,000.
Looking at this list some are dubious. e.g. Hibicus Coast (#9) has been swallowed up by Auckland (#1), I would have called it a part of Auckland, much like Manakau City, which isn't on the list.
Lower Hutt (#6) and Upper Hutt (#18) are on the list but Petone is not, geographically they are part of the same long valley and can almost all be considered part of Wellington like Manakau City is part of Auckland.
But you also get places like Masterton (#28), feels city like, since it is the largest settlement in the region but really it is a big town, it takes up a huge area though. Mainly services the farming communities around it.
Wow. And you still have >5 million people? This list goes all the way down to what I'd call not quite villages, but very small towns (although your link is broken, you need to add the Wikipedia part).
When you consider that the top 5 on that list take up 50% of the population. Auckland continues to grow, and at 30% of the population already, it has an crazy effect on the economic decisions in the country.
It is also growing geographically, eventually Auckland and Hamilton will merge somewhere around Huntly (#50).
Huh, so it does. It looks like it shouldn't at first, my bad.
Have you had any luck with the urban sprawl? We've brought in a bunch of urban densification stuff recently in Canada, and NZ was cited as an example to follow.
I remember going to Auckland in the 90s and being amazed how low everything was considering it's size. Wellington was vertical. Auckland was horizontal.