CHRISTCHURCH

town and borough (district), administrative county of Dorset, historic county of Hampshire, England. It lies at the confluence of the Rivers Stour and Avon and adjoins the English Channel resort of Bournemouth. The site was significant during prehistoric times; Late Bronze-Early Iron Age trade with the European continent apparently focused on nearby Hengistbury Head and Christchurch. The town's original name, Twineham, long survived in the form Cristechurch Twynham. Its first charter was granted about 1150. A Norman constable's house has been restored. The town's huge Augustinian priory church, one of the largest parish churches in England, dates from the 12th century and contains Norman elements of architecture. Largely residential in character, modern Christchurch is also a seaside resort with a small harbour. The Red House is an art gallery and museum. Apart from its fisheries, the borough has light industries and aircraft manufacture, maintenance, and repair. Area borough, 20 square miles (52 square km). Pop. (1991) town, 36,379; (1998 est.) borough, 43,900. city, Canterbury local government region, eastern South Island, New Zealand, on the Avon River. It was the last and most successful colonizing project inspired by Edward Gibbon Wakefield and his New Zealand Company. Christchurch was founded by the Canterbury Association, which was formed in 1848 largely through the efforts of John Robert Godley and which planned to establish a model Church of England settlement. The original immigrants arrived on five ships in 1850-51. Their settlement, known as Canterbury, was renamed after Christ Church College, Oxford, which Godley had attended. Proclaimed a city in 1862 and made a borough in 1868, it was expanded in 1903 and is now the second largest city (after Auckland) in New Zealand. Before World War II, the city was chiefly dependent on its rich agricultural environs. After 1945, aided by good transportation facilities, adequate supplies of artesian water, and plentiful, inexpensive hydroelectric power, Christchurch expanded to become New Zealand's second most important industrial centre. To its traditional meat-freezing and woolen and agricultural-implement production have been added the manufacture of clothing, carpets, rubber, wood and cork goods, transportation equipment, tires, soap, fertilizers, glass, footwear, and flour. The city's port is Lyttelton, a natural deepwater anchorage (7 miles southeast) to which it is linked by rail and road tunnels through the Port Hills. The port's chief exports are wool, meat, dairy products, and wheat; chief imports are petroleum products, fertilizers, iron, and steel. Christchurch is also served by an international airport and the South Island Main Trunk Railway. Because an average of one in eight of the city's acres is devoted to parks, public gardens, and other recreation areas, Christchurch has earned the nickname "Garden City of the Plains." One of the nation's principal educational centres, it has Lincoln University (1990; originally established in 1878 as a constituent agricultural college of the University of Canterbury), Christ's College, and the University of Canterbury (1873). Other notable institutions are an Anglican cathedral and Roman Catholic procathedral, the Robert McDougall Art Gallery, the Canterbury Museum, botanical gardens, and a planetarium. Pop. (1991) city, 292,858; (1992 est.) urban area, 308,200.