Aliens in the Attic

The Auckland metropolitan area , in the North Island of New Zealand, is the largest and most populous urban area in the country with 1,377,200 residents, 31 percent of the country's population. Auckland has the largest Polynesian population of any city in the world. In Māori Auckland's names... are Tāmaki Makaurau, and the transliterated version of Auckland, Ākarana. The 2011 Mercer Quality of Living Survey ranked Auckland 3rd equal place in the world on its list, while the Economist's World's Most Livable Cities index of 2011 ranked Auckland in 9th place. In 2010, Auckland was classified as a Beta World City in the World Cities Study Group’s inventory by Loughborough University. Auckland lies between the Hauraki Gulf of the Pacific Ocean to the east, the low Hunua Ranges to the south-east, the Manukau Harbour to the south-west, and the Waitakere Ranges and smaller ranges to the west and north-west. The central part of the urban area occupies a narrow isthmus between the Manukau Harbour on the Tasman Sea and the Waitemata Harbour on the Pacific Ocean. It is one of the few cities in the world to have harbours on two separate major bodies of water.
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Takapuna is a central, coastal suburb of North Shore City, located in the northern North Island of New Zealand, at the beginning of a south-east-facing peninsula forming the northern side of the Waitemata Harbour. While very small in terms of population, it was the seat of the North Shore City... Council before the amalgamation of Auckland in 2010 and contains substantial shopping and entertainment areas, being considered the CBD of North Shore City. The population of the census area of "Takapuna Central" was 2,811 in the 2006 Census, an increase of 291 from 2001. The census area does not include some streets to the west of the CBD which are often considered as part of Takapuna. Takapuna is located on the isthmus of a peninsula which extends south into the northern waters of the Waitemata at the harbour's eastern end. As such, the suburb has a coastline on Shoal Bay, an arm of the Waitemata to the southwest, as well as having a coast on the Hauraki Gulf to the northeast. The northern end of the suburb is dominated by the large volcanic crater of Lake Pupuke. Some points in Takapuna are less than 500 metres from all three of these bodies of water.
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Albany is a northern suburb of Auckland, one of the several cities in northern New Zealand. The name derives from Alba and its Latinisation. It is located to the north of the Waitemata Harbour, 15 kilometres northwest of the Auckland city centre. The suburb is in the Albany ward, one of the... thirteen administrative divisions of Auckland City. One of the city's newest suburbs, it was until relatively recently a town in its own right, and still has a feeling of not being truly a part of the city, which lies predominantly to the southeast of it. Much of the land to the north of Albany is still semi-rural. The Māori name for the area was Okahukura . The town was originally known as Lucas Creek, but was renamed in 1890 after Prince Leopold, Duke of Albany, a son of Queen Victoria.
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