A to Z Challenge – Z in for Zero – Marker at the Centre of New Zealand

Photo Credit – Geographical = Centre at Nelson the “Centre of New Zealand”.

Saturday, April 30,  Z – is the end of A to Z challenge. because there is no town in New Zealand starting with Z, but there is a special place, marking the centre of New Zealand, I would like to share with you.

Because there is no town in New Zealand starting with Z, but there is a special place, marking the centre of New Zealand, I would like to share with you.

The geographical “centre of New Zealand” allegedly lies in Nelson, on a hilltop near the centre of the city.

This is the point “zero, zero” from which the first trigonometrical surveys were started in the 1870s by John Spence Browning, the Chief Surveyor for Nelson.

From this 360-degree viewpoint, the zero, zero points in neighbouring geodetic survey regions (including Wellington in the North Island) could be triangulated and a better survey of the whole of New Zealand constructed.

In 1962, the ‘gravitational centre’ (including Stewart Island and some smaller islands in addition to the North and South Island, but excluding the Chathams) of New Zealand lay in a patch of unremarkable dense scrub in a forest in Spooners Range near Tapawera, 35 km (22 miles) south-west of Nelson.

For the final post in this A to Z Challenge, I learnt something about New Zealand that I didn’t know myself.

A view of Nelson from the “Centre of New Zealand”

Nelson is a city on the eastern shores of Tasman Bay and is the economic and cultural centre of the Nelson region.

Established in 1841, it is the second-oldest settled city in New Zealand and the oldest in the South Island and was proclaimed a city by royal charter in 1858.

Nelson City has a population of around 46,437

If you would like to know more about Nelson