Queen Street, Auckland

Queen Street

Pre-2016 view of Queen Street looking towards downtown Auckland, from in front of the Downtown Ferry Terminal.
Location	Auckland, New Zealand
Postal code	1010
North end	Quay Street
South end	Karangahape Road

Queen Street is the major commercial thoroughfare in the Auckland CBD, Auckland, New Zealand's main population centre. It starts at Queens Wharf on the Auckland waterfront, adjacent to the Britomart Transport Centre and the Downtown Ferry Terminal, and runs increasingly more steeply uphill for almost three kilometres in a mostly straight south-southwesterly direction towards the Karangahape Road ridge, and the residential suburbs in the interior of the Auckland isthmus.

Named after Queen Victoria, Queen Street was an early development of the new town of Auckland (founded in 1840), although initially the main street was intended to be Shortland Street, running parallel to the shore of Commercial Bay. The early route of Queen Street led up the middle of a gully following the bank of the Waihorotiu Stream (later bounded in as the 'Ligar Canal'). This canal was culverted beneath the street from the 1870s onward, allowing for further development of the street to be undertaken. The course of the stream is still reflected today in the slight bend of lower Queen Street. From north of Shortland Street, Queen Street is built on land reclaimed from the sea in the late 19th century (see Auckland waterfront article).

There are several other 'Queen Streets' in the greater Auckland area, mostly in suburbs that were separate towns before being absorbed by a growing central city. Auckland was also called the "Queen City" since before the turn of the 20th century, though that term is now overshadowed by the nickname "City of Sails".

Settlement in the Queen Street area began in 1841 with a number of wooden buildings along the western side, following the general path of the Waihorotiu Stream according to the plans set out by surveyor Felton Mathew. While the street was metalled in 1843 ('metal' is a New Zealand term for gravel road), the natural stream still often overflowed its banks, and the area was still swampy. This led to canalisation and later covering-over of the stream.