Invercargill, city, Southland regional council, South Island, New Zealand. Invercargill lies in the southernmost part of the South Island along the Waihopai River, near its confluence with the New River estuary. A service centre for the region’s agricultural industries, the city is situated on a plain that stretches to the north, east, and west; to the south, the estuary leads into Foveaux Strait, which separates the South Island from Stewart Island.
Maori had inhabited the region for centuries by the time Europeans arrived in the area. Captain James Cook and his crew were the first, sailing around the southern tip of South Island, including Foveaux Strait, in 1770, and passed by again three years later. Europeans, often transient, began arriving in the region in the late 1700s and early 1800s, attracted by the prospects for seal and whale hunting. The area including what is now Invercargill was bought from the Maori by the New Zealand Company in 1853 in an agreement called the Murihiku Purchase. Within a few years of the purchase, New Zealand officials, among them Governor Thomas Gore Brown, began planning the establishment of a township to be called Invercargill; the name was chosen to honour Captain William Cargill, a prominent settler and administrator in what was then Otago province.
John Kelly, an Irish-born sealer and whaler, arrived with his family in 1856 as the first European settlers near what would soon be chosen as the site of Invercargill. They were quickly followed by a small number of others, forming a settlement known at first as Kelly’s Point or Inverkelly. That same year the chief surveyor for Otago province, John Turnbull Thomson, chose the existing settlement as the location of Invercargill and surveyed and laid out the town site. The first sale of town lands took place in March 1857, and by the end of the year, there were several dozen residents, many of them Scots, and a small number of businesses. Invercargill served as the capital of Southland province (1861–70) during its short existence independent of Otago province. (The provincial system was abolished in 1876.) The town was made a borough in 1871. With the development of the Southland region from the late 19th century as an agricultural and food-processing centre, Invercargill grew rapidly, and it was incorporated as a city in 1930.
Invercargill is the centre of a sheep- and dairy-farming region and has food-processing plants, wool-processing facilities, sawmills, joineries, storage facilities, and engineering plants. The city airport, located approximately 2 miles (3 km) from the city centre, provides domestic connections. Stewart Island can be reached by air from Invercargill or by ferry from the port of Bluff, some 17 miles (27 km) south of the city. The city’s prominent cultural institutions include the Anderson Park Art Gallery, the neo-Georgian former home of a noted local businessman that now houses the work of New Zealand artists; the Southland Museum and Art Gallery; and a number of historic churches, houses, and administrative buildings. Invercargill has an established network of historic walks, parks, and nature trails. The main park, Queen’s Park, features an aviary and rose gardens. The landmark brick Invercargill Water Tower (1889), capped by a cupola, can be climbed for a scenic view of the city. Pop. (2006) 46,773; (2012 est.) 49,000.