Kawerau

Kawerau is a small town on the North Island of New Zealand. With a size of only 22 km ² Kawerau is by far the smallest district of the country, the Kawerau District.

Geography

Kawerau is an enclave; the place is completely surrounded by the Whakatane District. The area is hilly and can be used as pasture. In the vicinity is the 820m high Mount Edgecumbe.

Climate

The average daily maximum in the summer months is 23.7 ° C. In addition, the average daily maximum in winter (May to August) of 15.6 ° C.

Population

Since the area of the district comprises only 22 km ², which is taken almost entirely from the village of Kawerau itself, there is no other settlement in the district.

52 % of the population pays to the European ethnic group, while 60% ​​of the ethnic group of Māori attribute. The proportion of Asians and people of the Pacific Islands, at just under 4 %, or just over 1% below the national average.

History

In 1953, Kawerau began as a site for a paper mill against Murupara through, even though this place is located close to a port, because in Kawerau, the machine could be operated with geothermal energy. In the following months a settlement for about 5000 people and one of the largest and most modern paper mills, the Tasman Pulp and Paper Mill was built (about: Tasman pulp and paper mill ).

Later immigrants from Finland, the United States, Britain and Australia were brought as laborers since there was a lack asn professionals in New Zealand. This helped Kawerau, which consisted of hundreds, identically designed houses, to an international flair.

Enhancements in the 1970s, the population grew to 9000 people. This was followed by increasing automation to layoffs, which led to a relatively high level of unemployment and thus to a loss of population from 2001 to 2004 by 6.9 %.

Also the Edgecumbe earthquake of 1987 with a magnitude of 6.5 on the Richter scale was at Kawerau is not entirely unaffected. In 2004, an energy company announced plans to build a 150 - million -NZ $ expensive Geothermal power plant. This gave the place an economic boom.

Traffic

The place is now end point of the East Coast Main Trunk Railway, which produces a continuous rail link to Auckland and Wellington via Tauranga and Hamilton. About the railway line particularly the building materials were transported to the pulp and paper mill approach, some of the wood for processing and products of the factory are now transported by rail.