Wellington Province

Poster for the Wellington Provincial Council elections in 1853.

The province governed much of the southern half of the North Island, roughly the same area now known as the Manawatū-Whanganui and Wellington regions.

In the centre of the island the Wellington Province shared a boundary with the Auckland Province at latitude 39° south. To the west, just beyond the town of Waverley was the southern border of Taranaki Province.

East of the main divide, the boundary with Hawke's Bay Province lay just south of Woodville. This province was separated from Wellington Province on 1 November 1858.

Wellington's former provincial boundaries include four of New Zealand's main urban areas: Wellington, Palmerston North, Wanganui and Kapiti. Other large towns are Feilding, Levin and Masterton. According to Statistics New Zealand figures at the 2001 census 626,000 people lived within the old provincial boundaries.

In the area that was to become the Wellington Province, European settlement started at Port Nicholson (now called Wellington Harbour) and at the mouth of the Whanganui River. Settlement in the Hawke's Bay area started a decade later around 1850.[1]

New Zealand law provides an anniversary day for each province. Wellington Anniversary Day is the Monday that falls closest to 22 January and is observed as a public holiday within the old provincial boundaries.

The Wellington Province had two Superintendents:[2]

The only two acts of the provincial assembly still in effect are the Manawatu Racecourse Act 1869 and the Wanganui And Rangitikei Racecourses Act 1862.[3]