Kihikihi is a small town located in the Waikato region of the North Island of New Zealand. It is a satellite community of Te Awamutu, five kilometres to the north, and is 35 kilometres south of Hamilton. The population in the 2006 Census was 1,959 people, an increase of 18 since 2001.[1]
The town's outer rim has now merged with the expanding rim of Te Awamutu, rendering the boundary between the two towns difficult to perceive.
Kihikihi means cicada in the Māori language. A large statue of a cicada stands at the northern entrance to the town.
Kihikihi's multi-purpose sports domain hosts national and international equestrian events such as the FEI Eventing World Cup.
John Rochford (1832–1893)[2] died in the Star Hotel and is buried in the Kihikihi Cemetery near the Kihikihi Primary school. He was one of the first to survey the routes of today's railways in both the North & South Islands. A reserve in Kihikhi is named after John Rochford.
Rewi Maniapoto lived in Kihikihi, on the site where the Rewi Maniapoto Reserve, and the memorial now sits. Kihikihi was at the core of the productive farm lands that Maori developed in the 1850s with the help of CMS missionaries.From here food was supplied to new settlers in Auckland for a brief period.The area became the heartland of the rebel Maori uprising in 1863.