Dannevirke
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Dannevirke Tāmaki-nui-a-Rua (Māori) |
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 Dannevirke
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| Coordinates: 40°12′22″S 176°05′58″E / 40.20611°S 176.09944°ECoordinates: 40°12′22″S 176°05′58″E / 40.20611°S 176.09944°E | |
| Country | New Zealand |
| Region | Manawatu-Wanganui |
| Territorial authority | Tararua District |
| Population (June 2016) | |
| • Total | 5,260 |
| Postcode(s) | 4930 |
Dannevirke (Danish: "Danish creation" or "Danes' work" and a reference to Danevirke), is a rural service town in the Manawatu-Wanganui Region of the North Island, New Zealand. It is the major town of the administrative Tararua District, the easternmost of the districts in which the Regional Council has responsibilities. The surrounding area has developed into dairy, beef cattle and sheep farming, which now provides the major income for the town's population of 6,000.
Before European settlers arrived in the 1870s, the line of descent for Maori in the area was from the Tākitimu / Kurahaupō waka. The tribe of the area is the Ngāti Kahungunu / Rangitāne, with geographic distinction to Te Rangiwhakaewa in the immediate Dannevirke region. The first known 'Aotea' meeting house was established approximately 15 generations ago (from 2010) followed by the building of a marae at Makirikiri near Dannevirke at about the same time as the first Nordic settlers arrived from Napier and Hawkes Bay.
The town was founded on 15 October 1872 by Danish, Norwegian and Swedish settlers, adherents of Scandinavism, who arrived at the port of Napier and moved inland. The settlers, who arrived under the Public Works Act, built their initial settlement in a clearing of the Seventy Mile Bush.
The Dannevirke after which the town was named is an extensive Viking age fortification line in Denmark which had a strong emotive symbolic role for 19th-century Danes, especially after the site had fallen into German hands in the German-Danish War of 1864 - a recent and very painful event for these settlers.
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Wikipedia