- Morrinsville
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Morrinsville Coordinates: 37°39′S 175°31′E / 37.65°S 175.517°ECoordinates: 37°39′S 175°31′E / 37.65°S 175.517°E Country New Zealand
Region Waikato Territorial authority Matamata-Piako District Ward Morrinsville Electorate Waikato Government - MP Lindsay Tisch (National) - Mayor Hugh Vercoe Population - Urban 6,309 Time zone NZST (UTC+12) - Summer (DST) NZDT (UTC+13) Postcode 3300 Area code(s) 07 Morrinsville is a town in the Waikato region of New Zealand's North Island. The land for the town and surrounding farmland was purchased from Wirimu Tamehana,the king maker prior to the NZ land wars of the 1860s. The land then was very swampy. The Scottish Morrin brothers hired Irish navvies from the gold fields to dig an extensive network of drains to dry the land.One of the brothers was an engineer. It is situated around 33 kilometres east of Hamilton and 22 kilometres west of Te Aroha, close to the banks of the Piako River and Waitakaruru Stream. It has a population of approximately 6000–7000.
Morrinsville serves as one of three town centres in New Zealand's most prosperous dairy farming industry, and the region around the town is sometimes described as among the most intensively farmed areas in the world, from where it gets its town slogan 'cream of the country'. The town is named after Samuel and Thomas Morrin, early settlers who purchased the land as an estate and founded the town to house the estate's workers.
Morrinsville is the railway junction of the Thames Branch (now truncated as the Waitoa Industrial Line) with the East Coast Main Trunk Railway, which passes through the town. The last passenger trains to serve the town were the Kaimai Express and the Geyserland Express, both of which were cancelled in October 2001.
Sports clubs
Notable people
- Stephen Shepherd Allen (1882–1964), mayor of Morrinsville
External links
Categories:- Populated places in New Zealand
- Waikato Region
- Waikato Region geography stubs
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