Christchurch is a city that rose from its rubble. After the devastating earthquakes of 2010 and 2011, which destroyed much of its historic centre and claimed 185 lives, the largest city in the South Island embarked on one of the most ambitious and creative urban rebuilds in the world. Today its centre combines restored heritage buildings with bold modern architecture, street art, green spaces and innovative projects born from the tragedy, in a vibrant and moving mix that makes it a fascinating destination.
Nicknamed the 'Garden City' for its magnificent parks and gardens, Christchurch keeps an English air in its Botanic Gardens, its punting on the Avon River and its heritage tram, while showing a creative, resilient spirit in places like the Cardboard Cathedral, the Quake City museum (about the earthquakes), its street art and a revitalised food scene. Surrounded by Banks Peninsula, the hills and the sea, it also offers nature just minutes away.
This guide takes a practical look at Christchurch: how to get there (it has the South Island's main airport), how to get around with the Metro network and the Metrocard, what to see in a city marked and reborn by the earthquakes (from the moving memorial to the innovative rebuild projects), how much its attractions cost, and how to use it as a base to explore the South Island. A city that moves you with its recent history and surprises you with its creative energy: the best starting point for discovering the south of New Zealand.
Christchurch (Ōtautahi) stands on the territory of the Ngāi Tahu iwi, whose local hapū, Ngāi Tūāhuriri, had settlements and mahika kai (food-gathering) routes around the Avon River (Ōtākaro) and the wetlands. Founded in 1850 by English settlers of the Canterbury Association as a model Anglican city, it grew on the livestock and wheat of the Canterbury Plains, with a strongly English character. Its modern history was split in two by the 2010-2011 earthquakes, which destroyed the centre and killed 185 people, and by the extraordinary rebuild that followed. The full story is on our history page.
Read the full history ↓The great plain of the South Island, settled by the Anglican “Canterbury Pilgrims” in 1850 around Christchurch, “the garden city”. Land of Ngāi Tahu, of the roof of the country (Aoraki/Mount Cook) and of the dark skies of Tekapo, marked by the devastating earthquakes of 2010-2011.
Read the history of Canterbury →No exact prices: a scale from $ (budget) to $$$$$ (luxury), with 2-3 options per category.
Origins, formation and what the sources say.
Long before New Zealand's most English city existed, the plains along the Avon River were the territory (rohe) of the Ngāi Tahu iwi, the Māori people of the South Island, and before them of Waitaha and Kāti Māmoe. The Māori name for Christchurch is Ōtautahi, and the hapū (sub-tribe) holding mana whenua (ancestral authority) over this area is Ngāi Tūāhuriri, whose main centre is at Tuahiwi, north of the city. To them, this was not empty land. It was a landscape they had known and used for centuries.
The wetlands, rivers and lagoons around present-day Christchurch made a rich place of mahika kai, a term for gathering food and for the places where it is found. The Avon River (Ōtākaro to Māori) and the nearby wetlands were important sources of eels (tuna), waterfowl, fish and plants. Māori moved through the region on seasonal routes, and the coast and Banks Peninsula (Horomaka) provided kai moana (food from the sea). Settlements (pā and kāinga) and tracks linked all these resources.
The arrival of Europeans in the South Island, and especially the trade and firearms of the 19th century, brought dramatic events. One example is the raids of the northern chief Te Rauparaha in the 1830s, which hit Ngāi Tahu hard in the Canterbury and Banks region. When British settlers arrived to found Christchurch in the mid-19th century, they found a territory that already had centuries of history and Māori presence. The essential starting point for telling the city's story is to recognise that Ōtautahi was, and still is, the land of Ngāi Tūāhuriri and Ngāi Tahu, with its own name, its sacred river and its places of mahika kai.
Christchurch was born from an ambitious colonial project with a strongly English and Anglican character. It was founded in 1850 by the Canterbury Association, a British organisation that wanted to create a model colony on the other side of the world. The colony was meant to be orderly, respectable and built around the Church of England, a kind of 'ideal England' in the South Pacific. The first settlers arrived in 1850 on the so-called 'First Four Ships'. They landed at Lyttelton and crossed the Port Hills to the plains where the city would be built.
The name 'Christchurch' comes from Christ Church, the Oxford University college attended by one of the project's leaders. The city was laid out on a neat grid around a central square (Cathedral Square), which was set aside for a great Anglican cathedral. Settlers planted English trees, cultivated gardens and put up Gothic Revival stone buildings, which gave Christchurch the air of an English garden city that would become its trademark. ChristChurch Cathedral, the Gothic Revival cathedral on the central square, was built between 1864 and 1904 and became the symbol and heart of the city.
Meanwhile, in 1848, the Crown had 'bought' huge areas of the South Island from Ngāi Tahu (Kemp's Deed and other purchases) for tiny sums. The deals came with promises of adequate reserves, schools, hospitals and continued access to mahika kai sites, and those promises were systematically broken. So while Christchurch flourished as a prosperous colonial city, made rich by wool, wheat and livestock from the fertile Canterbury Plains, Ngāi Tahu were stripped of their land and resources. This gave rise to one of the most significant historical grievances in the country.
A series of devastating earthquakes divided the history of Christchurch for good. The first struck in the early hours of 4 September 2010, with a magnitude of 7.1. Because it happened at night and some distance from the city, it surprisingly killed no one, although it did cause major damage. The city felt lucky. But the worst was yet to come.
On 22 February 2011, at 12:51 pm, a magnitude 6.3 earthquake shook Christchurch. It was smaller than the 2010 quake but far more destructive and deadly, because its epicentre was very close to the city and very shallow. It produced some of the most violent ground accelerations ever recorded in an urban area. It struck during working hours, and entire buildings in the city centre collapsed. 185 people from more than 20 countries died, many of them in the collapse of the CTV building (which housed a language school) and the PGC building. The cathedral spire came down, and much of the city's historic heart was left in ruins or damaged beyond repair.
Liquefaction, which happens when waterlogged ground loses its strength and behaves like a liquid, made the disaster much worse. The eastern suburbs were hit hardest, with houses, streets and pipes ruined and whole neighbourhoods buried in silt. Thousands of aftershocks followed for months, including another destructive series in June 2011, which left people anxious and exhausted. Thousands of people left the city. Whole eastern neighbourhoods were declared a 'red zone', unfit to live in, and were demolished. The centre of Christchurch stayed cordoned off for a long time, and many of its buildings were marked for demolition. The city as it had been was gone.
Out of the destruction came one of the world's most remarkable and creative stories of urban rebuilding. While the rubble was cleared and the recovery planned, the people of Christchurch responded with extraordinary energy, ingenuity and resilience. One of the first symbols was the Re:START Mall, a temporary shopping centre made of colourful shipping containers. It was set up in 2011 in the middle of the devastated centre so that shops could reopen, and its image of optimism among the ruins went around the world. Groups such as 'Gap Filler' filled empty lots with creative projects, gardens, art and community spaces.
Landmark rebuilding projects followed. The Japanese architect Shigeru Ban designed the Cardboard Cathedral, a transitional cathedral made of cardboard tubes. It opened in 2013 and became a worldwide symbol of resilience. The national memorial Oi Manawa was created by the river and lists the names of the 185 victims, and the Quake City museum tells the story of the tragedy. Street art flourished all over the city. New modern and sustainable buildings went up, along with a brand-new innovation precinct and the Riverside Market. The art deco New Regent Street was restored, and the Avon River corridor (Ōtākaro Avon River Corridor) was regenerated on land where 'red zone' neighbourhoods once stood.
The rebuild also made room for greater recognition of Ngāi Tahu and of the Māori identity of Ōtautahi. Working with the iwi, the designers of the new city made Māori culture, names and values more visible, and the Ōtākaro river corridor itself acknowledges the river's ancestral value. All this is part of a long process of redress that had reached a milestone years earlier with the landmark Ngāi Tahu Claims Settlement Act of 1998. After more than a century of claims over the unjust land purchases of the 19th century, the Crown gave Ngāi Tahu a formal apology, financial compensation and recognition of their ancestral relationship with the land and water. Today, more than a decade after the earthquakes, Christchurch is still rebuilding, and the historic cathedral itself is being restored. But it is no longer the city it was. It is more modern, creative and green, and more aware of its double heritage, English and Māori. For travellers, walking past its empty lots, new buildings, cardboard cathedral and memorial means witnessing one of the great stories of loss and rebirth of our time.
