population misnomers

I often think about the differences of where we came from in the UK to where we have ended up in New Zealand.

Invercargill is a city - but doesn't feel like a city, to me its more like a town with very big suburbs.

It doesn't have skyscrapers, The Kelvin Hotel is one of the tallest buildings in the CBD and its about as big as say the Elizabeth Hotel in Grimsby.

but when I start to think of the crowded shopping centres and busy streets, traffic jams and the crawl home when your stuck in the rush hour traffic, (Rush hour in Grimsby - Immingham never used to get busy really - other than at the school gates!)

I assumed that it's because there are more people in the UK than here. But the figures show that there are the same amount of people - well slightly more in Gore than Immingham - Grimsby has more than Invercargill, but is probably slightly smaller in size

But its maybe its because in the UK everything is more compact and closer together?

Any way I thought I would google it and see -

So here it is -


Invercargill — Population: 49,833 (2006 - down 3,378 from the 1996 census) I have linked the rest of the data here Invercargill statistics

Immingham — Population: 12,200 (It may be higher now due to the migration of recent migrants to the area) According to Wikipedia - Ming Ming (2001)

Now I thought that comparing Invercargill to Immingham was unfair as Immingham is a town, so I looked up the figures for Gore, which to me seems about the same size as Immingham, well maybe more spread out but I was correct as their totals are 12,459 in 2001...but 12,108 in 2006,
well its slightly higher, which is surprising as Gore felt even more relaxed and more like a village (I would have liked to have lived there)

Any way Back to the size of Invercargill - I also looked at the population figures for Grimsby, as I thought it was more likely the same size as Invercargill, and it seems that there are more people in Grimsby - so Yep it obviously is that because there are less people, the city can be more spread out and this gives it a more relaxed towny feel.


Grimsby — Population: 87,574 According to Wikipedia - Grimsby

I guess that when your from the UK you automatically expect a city to be crowded, noisy and smoggy... (well I suppose that if you go out at night in any urban place in New Zealand, when its cold its certainly smoggy with all the chimneys throwing out smoke!)

But the thing is I still feel that the main road in Invercargill is still less crowded than Grimsbys.

The Resident Population of the Whole of N E Lincolnshire was from the 2001 Census is 157,983.

The size of NE Lincs is 191 km2

Southland covers an area of 32,079 km² but has a population of 92,400, much more room to move!

For those who are not from our home town area and would like see some nice images of buildings where we used to live, check this link out, its from a company which has designed some of the features of the area, hodson architects I recognise the Bar at the Grimsby Institute, I had a few beers in there when I used to work at the institute - but sorry folks back in Grimsby - NZ makes far better coffee! Oh and sorry I couldn't find any nice scenic shots.

and for those who want to see and read a bit more about Invercargill you can read the info on the link

enjoy!