Akaroa, community, eastern South Island, New Zealand. It is situated on the shore of French Bay, inside Akaroa Harbour, which is a rocky inlet on the Banks Peninsula formed when the sea breached the erosion-enlarged crater of an ancient volcano. The town’s name derives from the Maori for “long harbour.”
In 1838 a French whaler, Captain Jean Langlois, agreed with the local Maori chiefs to buy 30,000 acres (12,000 hectares) of the peninsula. He returned to France to organize the Nanto-Bordelaise Company (1839), which, backed by a warship, dispatched a settlement force. Arriving in 1840, the settlers found that the British had in the interim declared sovereignty over South Island. An agreement reached between the French and the British allowed the company to establish its settlement, which was sold to the New Zealand government in 1849.
The settlement serves a fruit- and dairy-farming area. A summer resort and fishing port, Akaroa lies 52 miles (84 km) by road southeast of Christchurch. Pop. (2001) 576; (2006) 570.