Rongotai

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Rongotai
Local Authority	Wellington City
Characteristics:
Airports	Wellington International Airport
Surrounded by:
North	Evans Bay (bay)
North-east	Maupuia
East	Miramar
South-east	Moa Point
South	Lyall Bay (bay)
South-west	Lyall Bay (suburb)
West	Kilbirnie
North-west	Evans Bay (suburb)

This article is about the Wellington city cuburb of Rongotai. For the article about the New Zealand parliamentary electorate of the same name see Rongotai (NZ electorate)

Rongotai is a suburb of Wellington, New Zealand, located southeast of the city centre. It is on the Rongotai isthmus, between the Miramar Peninsula and the suburbs of Kilbirnie and Lyall Bay. It is known mostly for being the location of the Wellington International Airport. It is roughly in the centre of the Rongotai electorate, which is much bigger than the suburb.

Until about the 15th century, the Rongotai isthmus was probably a shallow channel known as Te Awa a Tia. The only part of the current isthmus above water was the small hill which now has the airport control tower on it; The Miramar Peninsula was an island in the entrance to Wellington Harbour. Māori oral history describes a massive earthquake known as Haowhenua (land swallower or destroyer) which raised the seabed so that it became possible to wade across to Miramar. Studies of sediment suggest that it was once below sea level. Following the earthquake, the seabed seems to have silted up, creating a sandflat which linked Miramar to the mainland, at least at low tide. When James Cook entered Wellington Harbour in 1773 the former channel was impassible by boat.^[1]

In 1855, another earthquake further lifted the isthmus so that it became permanently dry land. The southern half remained mostly sand dunes, but houses were built on the northern end, as was a gasworks and Rongotai College. In 1940 Rongotai became the site of the 1940 New Zealand Centennial Exhibition, which attracted more than 2.5 million people.^[2] The gasworks were later closed and the site is now occupied by a fire station.

Since the early twentieth century, the dunes had been used as a runway for light aircraft. By World War II a more permanent airfield had been built, and was used by the Royal New Zealand Air Force, who also took over the centennial buildings after the close of the exhibition. On 24 October 1959 Wellington's international airport was opened, the runway and associated buildings taking over the entire eastern half of the suburb. In the process of building the airport, 135 acres (0.55 km²) of land was reclaimed and 180 houses were moved.[1] The south-west quarter of the suburb was occupied mostly by light industry, but also by a Rongotai College playing field. The north-west quarter continued to be residential apart from the college and a few corner shops. In the early 2000s the industrial section of Rongotai was transformed when an old warehouse was turned into a retail park centring on a large branch of The Warehouse (a discount store). Traffic in the area has increased dramatically.

Rongotai has few if any famous sons or daughters. This is due partly to the very small size of the residential part of the suburb, which is sometimes considered to be part of Kilbirnie or Evans Bay. However Rongotai College has produced several All Blacks, including Ma'a Nonu.

[edit] References

1. ^ 'Historic Earthquakes' in Te Ara: The Encyclopaedia of New Zealand
2. ^ 'The New Zealand Centennial' at nzhistory.net.nz

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