Porirua is a city in the Wellington Region of the North Island of New Zealand, and one of the four cities that constitute the Wellington metropolitan area. It almost completely surrounds Porirua Harbour at the southern end of the Kapiti Coast. Pauatahanui Inlet, the eastern inlet of the harbour, is notable for its world-class estuarine values. The population as of was.HistoryThe name "Porirua" has a Māori origin: it may represent a variant of pari-rua ("two tides"), a reference to the two arms of the Porirua Harbour. In the 19th century the name designated a land-registration district that stretched from Kaiwharawhara (or Kaiwara) on the north-west shore of Wellington Harbour northwards to and around Porirua Harbour. The road climbing the hill from Kaiwharawhara towards Ngaio and Khandallah still bears the name "Old Porirua Road".In the 19th century a small European settlement grew up, partly because of the need for a ferry across the harbour. At the time a small Māori settlement already existed.The Wellington and Manawatu Railway Company opened a railway line to Porirua in 1885, linking the city with Wellington. The railway reached Longburn (south of Palmerston North) in 1886 to connect with the Government's lines to Taranaki and Napier. With the acquisition of the company by the government in 1908, the line to Porirua formed part of the North Island Main Trunk railway. The railway contributed much to the growth of Plimmerton and Paremata by making day-trips to the beaches from Wellington relatively easy. The line through to Porirua was electrified in 1940 following the construction of the Tawa Flat deviation.
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