House of Te Ua Whaka, at Manakau ATLIB 249971

Manakau is a settlement in the

Horowhenua District Horowhenua District is a territorial authority district on the west coast of the North Island of New Zealand, administered by Horowhenua District Council. Located north of Wellington and Kapiti, it stretches from slightly north of the town of ...

, at the boundary of the

Manawatū-Whanganui Manawatū-Whanganui (; spelled Manawatu-Wanganui prior to 2019) is a region in the lower half of the North Island of New Zealand, whose main population centres are the cities of Palmerston North and Whanganui. It is administered by the Manawat ...

and

Wellington Wellington ( mi, Te Whanganui-a-Tara or ) is the capital city of New Zealand. It is located at the south-western tip of the North Island, between Cook Strait and the Remutaka Range. Wellington is the second-largest city in New Zealand by me ...

regions of

New Zealand New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island count ...

North Island The North Island, also officially named Te Ika-a-Māui, is one of the two main islands of New Zealand, separated from the larger but much less populous South Island by the Cook Strait. The island's area is , making it the world's 14th-largest ...

. It lies 8 km north of Otaki and 12 km south of Levin, and is connected to both via

State Highway 1 The following highways are numbered 1. For roads numbered A1, see list of A1 roads. For roads numbered B1, see list of B1 roads. For roads numbered M1, see List of M1 roads. For roads numbered N1, see list of N1 roads. For roads numbere ...

, which skirts Manakau's western edge. The township 5 km inland from the coast of the

Tasman Sea The Tasman Sea (Māori: ''Te Tai-o-Rēhua'', ) is a marginal sea of the South Pacific Ocean, situated between Australia and New Zealand. It measures about across and about from north to south. The sea was named after the Dutch explorer Abe ...

. In 1886, Manakau became the first place to have a

railway station Rail transport (also known as train transport) is a means of transport that transfers passengers and goods on wheeled vehicles running on rails, which are incorporated in tracks. In contrast to road transport, where the vehicles run on a pre ...

on the newly completed Wellington-Manawatu railway line.McKinnon, M.
Horowhenua
" ''Te Ara - the Encyclopedia of New Zealand'', 21 April 2015. Retrieved 21 April 2018. The line is now part of the

North Island Main Trunk The North Island Main Trunk (NIMT) is the main railway line in the North Island of New Zealand, connecting the capital city Wellington with the country's largest city, Auckland. The line is long, built to the New Zealand rail gauge of and ser ...

line, but the station itself has long been closed. Industries in the area include horticulture, and there are several plant nurseries in or close to the township. The name ''Manakau'' comes from the

Māori Māori or Maori can refer to: Relating to the Māori people * Māori people of New Zealand, or members of that group * Māori language, the language of the Māori people of New Zealand * Māori culture * Cook Islanders, the Māori people of the C ...

words ''mana'' (prestige, authority) and ''kau'' (alone, sole). The name refers to an invasion of the district by notable tribal leader

Te Rauparaha Te Rauparaha (c.1768 – 27 November 1849) was a Māori rangatira (chief) and war leader of the Ngāti Toa tribe who took a leading part in the Musket Wars, receiving the nickname "the Napoleon of the South". He was influential in the original ...

, who subdued the area on the strength of his prestige alone, with the local residents putting up no resistance.Reed, A.W. (1975). ''Place names of New Zealand''. Wellington: A.H. & A.W. Reed. p. 243 The streets are named after Māori members of Parliament.

Marae

Manakau has two

marae A ' (in New Zealand Māori, Cook Islands Māori, Tahitian), ' (in Tongan), ' (in Marquesan) or ' (in Samoan) is a communal or sacred place that serves religious and social purposes in Polynesian societies. In all these languages, the term a ...

, affiliated with local hapū from the

Ngāti Raukawa Ngāti Raukawa is a Māori iwi with traditional bases in the Waikato, Taupo and Manawatu/Horowhenua regions of New Zealand. In 2006, 29,418 Māori registered their affiliation with Ngāti Raukawa. History Early history Ngāti Raukawa reco ...

iwi. Tūkorehe Marae and its meeting house of the same name are affiliated with the hapū of Ngāti Tūkorehe; Wehi Wehi Marae and its meeting house of the same name are affiliated with the hapū of

Ngāti Wehi Wehi Iwi () are the largest social units in New Zealand Māori society. In Māori roughly means "people" or "nation", and is often translated as "tribe", or "a confederation of tribes". The word is both singular and plural in the Māori language, an ...

. In October 2020, the Government committed $482,108 from the

Provincial Growth Fund Shane Geoffrey Jones (born 3 September 1959) is a New Zealand politician. He served as a New Zealand First list MP from 2017 to 2020 and was previously a Labour list MP from 2005 to 2014. Jones was a cabinet minister in the Fifth Labour Gove ...

to Ngāti Tūkorehe to upgrade its Tūkorehe Marae, creating 17.5 positions.

Demographics

Manakau is defined by Statistics New Zealand as a rural settlement and covers . It is part of the wider Ōhau-Manakau statistical area, which covers . The population of Manakau was 420 in the

2018 New Zealand census Eighteen or 18 may refer to: * 18 (number), the natural number following 17 and preceding 19 * one of the years 18 BC, AD 18, 1918, 2018 Film, television and entertainment * ''18'' (film), a 1993 Taiwanese experimental film based on the sho ...

, an increase of 87 (26.1%) since the 2013 census, and an increase of 81 (23.9%) since the 2006 census. There were 204 males and 219 females, giving a sex ratio of 0.93 males per female. Ethnicities were 363 people (86.4%) European/Pākehā, 78 (18.6%) Māori, 9 (2.1%) Pacific peoples, and 18 (4.3%) Asian (totals add to more than 100% since people could identify with multiple ethnicities). Of the total population, 66 people (15.7%) were under 15 years old, 48 (11.4%) were 15–29, 186 (44.3%) were 30–64, and 120 (28.6%) were over 65.

Education

Manakau School is a co-educational state primary school for Year 1 to 8 students, with a roll of as of .

References

External links

* {{Horowhenua District Populated places in Manawatū-Whanganui Horowhenua District