
Sitting on the banks of the Waikato River, Hamilton is the country’s fourth most populous city. After the English invasion, the old Maori settlement was renamed after Captain John Fane Charles Hamilton, the commander of HMS Esk. The city was initially an agricultural service centre, but now has a diverse economy, with education and research playing an important part in this. The city is home to roughly 40,000 higher education students and 1,000 PhD-qualified scientists.