Ohariu (or Ohariu Valley) is a suburb of

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 metr ...

, New Zealand. It is a rural area, located from Khandallah. The name is a corruption of Owhariu, where, according to Māori mythology,

Kupe Kupe ( ~1180-1320) was a legendary Polynesian explorer, navigator and great rangatira of Hawaiki, who is said to have been the first human to discover New Zealand. Whether Kupe existed historically is likely but difficult to confirm. He is g ...

dried the sails of his canoe. The area is governed by the

Mākara Mākara is a locality located at the western edge of Wellington, New Zealand, close to the shore of the Tasman Sea. The suburb is named after the Mākara Stream (''mā'' is Māori for white, ''kara'' is a kind of greywacke stone). The Wellingt ...

/ Ōhāriu Community Board. The name of the locality has given its name to two general electorates: Ōhāriu (first formed for the without macrons) and (which existed from to 2008).

History

In the 19th century, Ohariu was divided into Country Sections by the

New Zealand Company The New Zealand Company, chartered in the United Kingdom, was a company that existed in the first half of the 19th century on a business model focused on the systematic colonisation of New Zealand. The company was formed to carry out the principl ...

. Many were sold to absentee owners, and there were only three resident settlers in 1854: James Smith, James Hallett and James Holder. Later settlers from the 1860s were James Bryant and his sons of ''Huia Farm'', Thomas Bassett of ''Willow Bank'', Charles Austin, George Best, and George Beech. Initially farms ran sheep and beef cattle. Access was by tracks from Awarua Street (Ngaio), Khandallah and Johnsonville; from the 1860s by the

Old Coach Road The Old Porirua Road in the 19th century was the main road north up the west coast from Wellington to Porirua in New Zealand. It ran from Kaiwarra (now Kaiwharawhara) up the Ngaio Gorge to Ngaio (then called Crofton), Khandallah, Johnsonville an ...

, and in 1908 via Ironside Road to Johnsonville. From 1916 there was a dairying invasion which lasted fifty years, because of a better return than from sheep. It began when Frank Nossiter bought Alf Kirby's 100 acre (41 ha) sheep farm, and moved 25 cows from Fielding to his ''Catewell Farm''. He was joined by a dozen more dairy farmers. Ohariu Valley has an article from 1896 in ''

The Cyclopedia of New Zealand ''The Cyclopedia of New Zealand: industrial, descriptive, historical, biographical facts, figures, illustrations'' was an encyclopaedia published in New Zealand between 1897 and 1908 by the Cyclopedia Company Ltd. Arthur McKee was one of the orig ...

''.

Demographics

Mākara-Ohariu statistical area covers , and includes

and

Mākara Beach Mākara Beach, previously spelled Makara Beach, is a suburb of Wellington, New Zealand consisting of a small seaside village and its surrounding countryside. The Wellington City Council regards it as a separate suburb to Mākara. Features The ...

. It had an estimated population of as of with a population density of people per km². Mākara-Ohariu had a population of 951 at 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 99 people (11.6%) since the 2013 census, and an increase of 183 people (23.8%) since the

2006 census 6 (six) is the natural number following 5 and preceding 7. It is a composite number and the smallest perfect number. In mathematics Six is the smallest positive integer which is neither a square number nor a prime number; it is the second small ...

. There were 321 households. There were 477 males and 474 females, giving a sex ratio of 1.01 males per female. The median age was 42.7 years (compared with 37.4 years nationally), with 159 people (16.7%) aged under 15 years, 177 (18.6%) aged 15 to 29, 504 (53.0%) aged 30 to 64, and 108 (11.4%) aged 65 or older. Ethnicities were 92.1% European/Pākehā, 10.1% Māori, 1.9% Pacific peoples, 3.2% Asian, and 2.2% other ethnicities (totals add to more than 100% since people could identify with multiple ethnicities). The proportion of people born overseas was 20.8%, compared with 27.1% nationally. Although some people objected to giving their religion, 56.5% had no religion, 31.5% were Christian, 0.3% were Hindu, 0.6% were Buddhist and 2.5% had other religions. Of those at least 15 years old, 255 (32.2%) people had a bachelor or higher degree, and 84 (10.6%) people had no formal qualifications. The median income was $47,700, compared with $31,800 nationally. The employment status of those at least 15 was that 474 (59.8%) people were employed full-time, 141 (17.8%) were part-time, and 21 (2.7%) were unemployed.

References

External links

Ohariu Valley History & Oral History Project (Library website)
{{Authority control Suburbs of Wellington City

History

Demographics

Further reading

References

External links