Tauranga Harbour is the natural tidal harbour that surrounds Tauranga CBD and the Mount Maunganui area of

Tauranga Tauranga () is a coastal city in the Bay of Plenty region and the fifth most populous city of New Zealand, with an urban population of , or roughly 3% of the national population. It was settled by Māori late in the 13th century, colonised by ...

New Zealand New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island count ...

, and which flows into the

Pacific Ocean The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean (or, depending on definition, to Antarctica) in the south, and is bounded by the contin ...

Mount Maunganui Mount Maunganui (, ) is a major residential, commercial and industrial suburb of the Tauranga metropolitan area, located on a peninsula to the north-east of Tauranga's city centre. It was an independent town from Tauranga until the completio ...

. The harbour is effectively two flooded river systems separated from the Pacific Ocean by

Matakana Island Matakana Island is located in the western Bay of Plenty in New Zealand's North Island. A long, flat barrier island, it is in length but rarely more than wide. The island has been continuously populated for centuries by Māori tribes that ar ...

. The harbour is a large tidal estuary with an area of some 200-km² and has a tidal range of up to 1.98m. Approximately 290,000,000 tonnes of water flow through the entrances at each tidal change. This tidal flow can generate currents of up to 7 knots within the entrance channels. The

Port of Tauranga The Port of Tauranga is situated in Tauranga, New Zealand. It is the largest port in the country both in terms of total cargo volume, and in terms of container throughput with container volumes exceeding 1.2 million TEUs (Twenty Foot Equival ...

is located in the harbour and container ships and cruise ships use the harbour's waters. The Tauranga harbour entrance is the shipping channel to the Port of Tauranga, New Zealand’s largest export port. Shipping movements can take place at any time, day or night, through the main channels. The harbour is used for many recreational activities, including

water skiing Water skiing (also waterskiing or water-skiing) is a surface water sport in which an individual is pulled behind a boat or a cable ski installation over a body of water, skimming the surface on two skis or one ski. The sport requires suffic ...

kite surfing Kiteboarding or kitesurfing is a sport that involves using wind power with a large power kite to pull a rider across a water, land, or snow surface. It combines aspects of paragliding, surfing, windsurfing, skateboarding, snowboarding, and wak ...

jet skiing A personal watercraft (PWC), also called water scooter or jet ski, is a recreational watercraft that a rider sits or stands on, not within, as in a boat. PWCs have two style categories, first and most popular being a runabout or "sit down" whe ...

, boating,

swimming Swimming is the self-propulsion of a person through water, or other liquid, usually for recreation, sport, exercise, or survival. Locomotion is achieved through coordinated movement of the limbs and the body to achieve hydrodynamic thrust that r ...

diving Diving most often refers to: * Diving (sport), the sport of jumping into deep water * Underwater diving, human activity underwater for recreational or occupational purposes Diving or Dive may also refer to: Sports * Dive (American football), a ...

and

fishing Fishing is the activity of trying to catch fish. Fish are often caught as wildlife from the natural environment, but may also be caught from stocked bodies of water such as ponds, canals, park wetlands and reservoirs. Fishing techniques inclu ...

External links

{{coord, 37, 38, S, 176, 05, E, region:NZ-BOP_type:landmark_source:GNS_scale:500000, display=title Tauranga Ports and harbours of New Zealand