Auckland, New Zealand’s largest metropolitan area

Photo: Skyline of Auckland, New Zealand, from Westhaven Marina

With about 31 per cent of New Zealand's population the Auckland metropolitan area is the largest in the country. Auckland also is the home to the largest Polynesian population of any city in the world. In recent times, many people of Asian ethnicity have settled in the city.

New Zealand is situated about 2,000 kilometers (1,200 miles) southeast of Australia across the Tasman Sea. Its closest neighbors are New Caledonia, Fiji and Tonga. The majority of New Zealand's population is of European descent, while the indigenous Maori are the largest minority.

The 2009 Mercer Quality of Living Survey ranked Auckland at # 4 spot in the world on its list, while World's Most Livable Cities index of 2010 published by The Economist ranked Auckland in 10th place. In 2008, Auckland was classified as an Alpha-City in the World Cities Study Group’s inventory by Loughborough University.

The City of Sails, as Auckland is popularly called, has its harbour dotted with hundreds of yachts. With around 135,000 yachts and launches, it has more yachts per capita than any other city in the world. About one in three Auckland households owns a boat.

Viaduct Basin hosted two America's Cup challenges (2000 and 2003), and its restaurants, cafes and clubs add to Auckland's vibrant nightlife. With the sheltered Waitemata Harbour at its doorstep, Auckland hosts many nautical events. There is a very large number of sailing clubs in Auckland, as well as Westhaven Marina, the largest in the Southern Hemisphere.

The up-market shopping areas Newmarket and Parnell, and Otara's and Avondale's flea markets offer a colorful kaleidoscope of shopping experience to international tourists and local visitors. The Auckland Art Gallery is the repository of many national treasures while many other historical and cultural artifacts are displayed in popular museums such as the Auckland War Memorial Museum or the Museum of Transport and Technology. Exotic animals and other creatures can be seen at the Auckland Zoo and Kelly Tarlton's Underwater World. The Waitemata Harbour has some of the best swimming beaches at Mission Bay, Devonport, Takapuna, and the west coast has famous surf spots such as Piha and Muriwai.

Mulberry Street in Little Italy in 1900s

Photo: Mulberry Street in Little Italy in 1900s. Little Italy, a neighborhood in lower Manhattan, New York City, was once known for its large population of Italians. Now much of it has been engulfed by Chinatown as a large number of immigrants from China moved to Little Italy. Currently the section of Mulberry Street, between Broome and Canal Streets, is all that is left of the old Italian neighborhood. The street is lined with about two dozen Italian restaurants, which are popular with tourists. In 2010, Little Italy and Chinatown were listed together as a single historic district on the National Register of Historic Places, the United States government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation.

Crossroads of the World on Sunset Boulevard

Built in 1936, ‘Crossroads of the World’ is America's first outdoor shopping mall, located on Sunset Boulevard and Las Palmas in Los Angeles. It has a central building designed to resemble an ocean liner surrounded by a small village of cottage-style bungalows. Now Crossroads has become the creative home of several music publishers and producers, television and film script writers, film and recording companies, novelists, costume designers, publicists and casting agencies.