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This article is about the City of Wellington. For a more general overview, see the main article Wellington.

Astronaut photo of central Wellington. (South at top.)

Wellington city is an area in New Zealand administered by the Wellington City Council, one of several territorial authorities in the Wellington region. Wellington city extends as far north as Linden, and includes the rural areas of Makara and Ohariu. It is New Zealand's sixth largest city behind the Auckland cities and Christchurch.

Wellington attained city status in 1886. Wellington is the capital of New Zealand and New Zealand's Parliament and Government are located in Wellington.

For a list of past mayors, see Mayor of Wellington.

See here for further information on the Wellington urban area.

There are roughly sixty officially defined suburbs in Wellington city. Grouped by the wards used to elect the City Council [1]. Some areas, while officially being part of a larger suburb (or several suburbs), are considered by some to be separate communities. The officially defined suburbs are:

Official suburbs of Wellington. The darker areas indicate built up zones, while the lighter areas are parkland, green belt, or rural.

• official: Broadmeadows; Churton Park; Glenside; Grenada; Grenada North; Horokiwi; Johnsonville; Khandallah; Newlands; Ohariu; Paparangi; Tawa; Takapu Valley; Woodridge
• informal: Greenacres; Redwood; Linden

• official: Karori; Northland; Crofton Downs; Kaiwharawhara; Ngaio; Ngauranga; Makara; Makara Beach; Wilton.
• informal: Cashmere; Chartwell; Rangoon Heights; Te Kainga

• official: Brooklyn; Aro Valley; Kelburn; Mount Victoria; Oriental Bay; Te Aro; Thorndon; Wadestown; Highbury; Pipitea; Roseneath
• informal: Mitcheltown; Taitville

• official: Berhampore; Island Bay; Newtown; Vogeltown; Houghton Bay; Kingston; Mornington; Mount Cook; Owhiro Bay; Southgate
• informal: Kowhai Park

• official: Hataitai; Lyall Bay; Kilbirnie; Miramar; Seatoun; Breaker Bay; Karaka Bays; Maupuia; Melrose; Moa Point; Rongotai; Strathmore
• informal: Crawford; Seatoun Bays; Seatoun Heights; Miramar Heights; Strathmore Heights.

Courtenay Place; Courtenay Quarter; Cuba Quarter; Lambton Quarter; Thorndon Quarter

Essentially international and domestic tourist destinations created by the Wellington City-funded Positively Wellington Tourism, but also now are communities self-grouped into common interests such as sport, entertainment, arts, architecture, finance, specialist shopping, creative business, archives, museums, performance spaces, etc ref [2]

Wellington city looking south with Johnsonville in the foreground

Victoria University of Wellington, Wellington's oldest university, has its main campus in the hill suburb of Kelburn overlooking the centre of the city. It also has two downtown campuses, and a campus in the western suburb of Karori. It was established as a constituent college of the University of New Zealand.

The senate of the University of New Zealand was located in Wellington until its dissolution in 1961.

There is also a branch of Massey University in Wellington, taking over the former Wellington Polytechnic. The campus is based at the former national museum (the Dominion Museum), which has been replaced by the Te Papa ("Our Place") museum. The University of Otago also has a Wellington connection, as the Wellington School of Medicine and Health Sciences is a department of that university.

Wellington Institute of Technology caters to Wellington and neighbouring Petone and the Hutt Valley. It is one of the largest polytechnics in the region and was established in 1904.

Numerous primary and secondary educational institutions are located throughout the city, see List of schools in Wellington, New Zealand.

Sister cities

• Beijing, People's Republic of China
• Xiamen, Fujian, People's Republic of China
• Sakai, Osaka, Japan

Historical sister cities

• Harrogate, England, United Kingdom
• Hania, Crete, Greece

Friendly sister city

• Sydney, New South Wales, Australia

A number of formerly independent boroughs have been incorporated into the city of Wellington. They include

• Melrose in 1903
• Onslow (Khandallah/Ngaio) in 1919
• Karori in 1920
• Miramar in 1921
• Johnsonville, formerly a Town Board, in 1953
• Tawa in 1989

• WellingtonNZ.com
• Wellington City Council
• Official map of suburbs (PDF format)
• More detailed official map of northern suburbs (PDF format)
• More detailed official map of central suburbs (PDF format)
• More detailed official map of southern suburbs (PDF format)
• Categorised profiles of several dozen websites dealing with one suburb or a group

Coordinates: 41°17′44″S, 174°46′50″E