New Zealand's sunniest city and arts capital — where Nelson holds the record for the most sunshine hours of any New Zealand city (2,400+ hours annually), sits at the top of the South Island where the Tasman Bay meets the foothills of Kahurangi National Park, is home to New Zealand's highest concentration of working artists and craft breweries per capita, the Centre of New Zealand hill gives views from the Nelson to Abel Tasman National Park (the most popular national park in New Zealand by visitor count), and the Thursday evening Market at Montgomery Square is the most diverse community market in the South Island
Nelson (55,000 city; Nelson-Tasman region 115,000) is a coastal city at the northern tip of New Zealand's South Island — the geographic and commercial centre of the Nelson-Tasman region, which includes Abel Tasman National Park (the smallest and most visited national park in New Zealand), Kahurangi National Park (the second-largest in New Zealand), and Nelson Lakes National Park. Nelson has been New Zealand's sunniest city by recorded sunshine hours for most years on record. The city has the highest concentration of artists and craftspeople per capita of any New Zealand city (approximately 1…
The Nelson area (Te Tau Ihu o te Waka a Maui, 'the prow of Māui's canoe') was settled by Māori (primarily the iwi of Ngāti Toa Rangatira and Ngāti Kuia, with earlier occupation by Rangitāne and Māruiwi peoples) for hundreds of years before European contact. The area was significant as a greenstone (pounamu/jade) extraction zone — the rivers of the region produced the most accessible pounamu on the South Island, traded throughout the country. Abel Tasman (1603–1659) was the first European to sight New Zealand (the coast at Golden Bay, 100 km west of Nelson, in December 1642), though he never l…