WESTPORT

urban town (township), Fairfield county, southwestern Connecticut, U.S. It lies along Long Island Sound at the mouth of the Saugatuck River just east of Norwalk. The area, which the local Indians called Saugatuck, was settled about 1648; it was renamed and detached from Fairfield, Norwalk, and Weston and incorporated as a separate town in 1835. It includes Saugatuck (the old shipping port) and the village of Greens Farms and has many 18th-century houses. Since the 1920s and '30s Westport has been known for its artists' and writers' colony; the town is now also the home of many successful actors and business executives. The Westport Country Playhouse offers summer and pre-Broadway theatre. The town is mainly an affluent residential suburb of New York City. Area 20 square miles (52 square km). Pop. (1990) 24,410; (1996 est.) 24,185. port town, West Coast local government region, northwestern South Island, New Zealand. It lies at the mouth of the Buller River. Coal and gold were discovered in the area in 1859, and the town was surveyed in 1862. Gold was exploited for only a half-century or so, but coal mining (well developed by the 1870s) continues. The mines around Westport remain one of New Zealand's principal sources of bituminous coal. Other exports include dairy products and cement from local works. Westport also has breweries; furniture, coal gas, knitwear, hosiery, and flax plants; sawmills; fish canneries; and general-engineering and rail workshops. It is connected by rail and road with the coal mines and Seddonville to the northeast and with Greymouth to the southwest. Pop. (1988 est.) 4,640.