It is located near the southern end of Pegasus Bay , and is bounded to the east by the Pacific Ocean and to the south by Banks Peninsula. Christchurch has a reputation for being an 'English' city, with its architectural identity and common nickname the "Garden City" due to similarities with garden cities in England. The city's territorial authority population is , people, and includes a number of smaller urban areas as well as rural areas.
Christchurch is served by the Christchurch Airport in Harewood , the country's second-busiest airport. Evidence of human activity in the area goes as far back as AD, with evidence of prolonged occupation by the Waitaha iwi beginning no later than Christchurch was settled as a British colonial settlement in the mid-nineteenth century.
It became a city by royal charter on 31 July , making it officially the oldest established city in New Zealand. Later, industrialisation and the opening of the Main South Line railway and the connection to Lyttelton Harbour by the Lyttelton Rail Tunnel saw rapid growth in the city's economy and population, with large industrial premises built along the railway.
The early presence of the University of Canterbury and the heritage of the city's academic institutions in association with local businesses has fostered a number of technology-based industries. The city suffered a series of earthquakes from September , with the most destructive occurring on 22 February , in which people were killed and thousands of buildings across the city suffered severe damage, with a few central city buildings collapsing, leading to ongoing recovery and rebuilding projects.
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The city later became the site of a terrorist attack targeting two mosques on 15 March The name Christchurch was adopted at the first meeting of the Canterbury Association on 27 March The reason it was chosen is not known with certainty, but the most likely reason is it was named after Christ Church, Oxford , the alma mater of many members of the association, including John Robert Godley. Many of the early colonists did not like the name, preferring instead the name Lyttelton, but the Colonists' Council resolved to stick with the name of Christchurch in , because it had been used by surveyors and distinguished the settlement from the port.
