A true-colour image showing Auckland city (left), the Hauraki Gulf (centre) and the Coromandel Peninsula (right). The scene was acquired by NASA's Terra satellite, on October 23, 2002. The Coromandel Range is a mountain range running the length of the Coromandel Peninsula in the

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-larges ...

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 List of islands of New Zealand, smaller islands. It is the ...

. It is located east of the city of

Auckland Auckland (pronounced ) ( mi, Tāmaki Makaurau) is a large metropolitan city in the North Island of New Zealand. The most populous urban area in the country and the fifth largest city in Oceania, Auckland has an urban population of about I ...

, and runs north–south for approximately 110 kilometres. It is at a right angle to the Tararua ranges. The highest point in the range is Mount Moehau (892 metres/2927 feet), at the northern end of the peninsula within the Moehau Range. There are numerous peaks over 600 metres in height. In pre-European times, the southern Coromandel Range was densely forested by trees such as kauri, mataī and tawa, and was a home for birds such as

kererū The kererū (''Hemiphaga novaeseelandiae'') or New Zealand pigeon is a species of pigeon native to New Zealand. Johann Friedrich Gmelin described the bird in 1789 as a large, conspicuous pigeon up to in length and in weight, with a white b ...

, tui,

kākā The New Zealand kākā (''Nestor meridionalis'') is a large species of parrot of the family Nestoridae found in New Zealand's native forests. The species is often known by the abbreviated name kākā, although it shares this name with the recen ...

and kiwi.

Greywacke Greywacke or graywacke ( German ''grauwacke'', signifying a grey, earthy rock) is a variety of sandstone generally characterized by its hardness, dark color, and poorly sorted angular grains of quartz, feldspar, and small rock fragments or li ...

from the ranges was a source for many stone tools used by Hauraki Māori. The range is one of several that form a bone running through the northern North Island. To the south of the Coromandel Range, separated by the winding Karangahake Gorge, the bone continues with the Kaimai Range. The large island of Great Barrier, at the entrance to the

Hauraki Gulf The Hauraki Gulf / Tīkapa Moana is a coastal feature of the North Island of New Zealand. It has an area of 4000 km2,Messrs. Smyth Brothers' Tramway Messrs. Smyth Brothers' Tramway was from 1897 to 1908 a bush tramway in New Zealand. Operation Smyth Bros. owned around 1900 a logging operation using a steam tramway at Kennedy's Bay on the north-east coast of the Coromandel Peninsula, a f ...

References

Mountain ranges of Waikato Thames-Coromandel District {{Waikato-geo-stub