page_title: Nelson, New Zealand
section_title: "Centre of New Zealand" monument
hierarchical_section_title: Nelson, New Zealand / Geography / "Centre of New Zealand" monument
caption_attribution_description: English: Symbol for the geographic centre of New Zealand, near Nelson (not the real geographic centre).
context_page_description: Nelson is a city on the eastern shores of Tasman Bay. Nelson is the oldest city in the South Island and the second-oldest settled city in New Zealand – it was established in 1841 and was proclaimed a city by royal charter in 1858.
  Nelson City is bordered to the west and south-west by Tasman District Council and to the north-east, east and south-east by Marlborough District Council. The city does not include Richmond, the area's second-largest settlement. Nelson City has a population of around 50,000, making it New Zealand's 12th most populous city. When combined with the town of Richmond, which has roughly 15,000 residents, the whole conurbation is ranked as New Zealand's 9th largest urban area by population.
  Nelson is well known for its thriving local arts and crafts scene; each year, the city hosts events popular with locals and tourists alike, such as the Nelson Arts Festival. The annual Wearable Art Awards began near Nelson and a local museum, World of Wearable Art now showcases winning designs alongside a collection of classic cars.
context_section_description: Nelson has a monument on Botanical Hill, near the centre of the city. The walk to this is called the "Centre of New Zealand walk". Despite the name, this monument does not mark the actual geographic centre of New Zealand.
  Instead, the monument marks the "zero, zero" point to which the first geodetic surveys of New Zealand were referenced. These surveys were started in the 1870s by John Spence Browning, the Chief Surveyor for Nelson. From this 360-degree viewpoint, survey marks in neighbouring regions (including Wellington in the North Island) could be triangulated and the local surveys connected.
  In 1962, Dr Ian Reilly from the now defunct Department of Scientific and Industrial Research calculated the geographic centre of New Zealand (including Stewart Island and some smaller islands in addition to the North and South Island, but excluding the Chathams) to be in a forest in Spooners Range 35 mi (56 kilometres) southwest of Nelson at  41°30′S 172°50′E.
  Owing to the coarse nature of the underlying data (use of rectangular areas of 7.5 minutes of arc on each side), the centre calculated by Dr Reilly has quite large error margins. Recalculating the result with more modern and accurate data shows the geographic centre of New Zealand is approximately 60 km southwest of Nelson, in the Big Bush Conservation Area north of Saint Arnaud, New Zealand.
caption: The marker at the "Centre of New Zealand"
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