Wellington Province
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The Wellington Province was a province of New Zealand until the abolition of provincial government in 1876.
Area
The province governed much of the southern half of the North Island, roughly the same area now known as the Manawatu-Wanganui and Wellington Regions. In the centre of the island the Wellington Province shared a boundary with the Auckland Province at latitude 39° south. East of the main divide, the boundary with Hawke's Bay Province lay just south of Woodville. To the west, just beyond the town of Waverley was the southern border of Taranaki Province.
Wellington's provincial boundaries includes four of New Zealand's 16 main urban areas: Wellington, Palmerston North, Wanganui and Kapiti. Other large towns are Feilding, Levin and Masterton. According to Statistics New Zealand figures at the 2001 census 626,000 people lived within the old provincial boundaries.
Anniversary Day
New Zealand law provides a anniversary day for each province. Wellington Anniversary Day is the second-to-last Monday in January and is observed as a public holiday within the old provincial boundaries.