The land, water, flora, and fauna of Canterbury has a long history, stretching from creation of the greywacke basement rocks that make up the Southern Alps to the arrival of the first humans.

Upon this solid foundation, and slowly over the billions of years, life made up of a countless generations of interconnected adaptations developed into the unique flora and fauna of Aotearoa/New Zealand.

The remnants populations of these unique species are visible today in the publicly protected conservation lands.

The species of Waitaha/Canterbury were adapted to the climate and geography that traverses inland from the coastline to the highest peaks, and from the warmer climes in the north to the colder in the south.

When European settlers arrived, it was occupied by Ngāi Tahu, whose numbers had been greatly reduced by warfare, among themselves and with Te Rauparaha and his Ngāti Toa from the North Island, in the early 19th century.

In 1848, Edward Gibbon Wakefield, a Briton, and John Robert Godley, an Anglo-Irish aristocrat, founded the Canterbury Association to establish an Anglican colony in the South Island.

Due to ties to the University of Oxford, the Canterbury Association succeeded in raising sufficient funds and recruiting middle-class and upper-class settlers.

Since they were highly valued by settlers for their meat and wool, there were over half a million sheep in the region by the early 1850s.

[5] During this period, the architect Benjamin Mountfort designed many civic and ecclesiastical buildings in the Gothic Revival style.

[7] The modern Canterbury region has slightly different boundaries, particularly in the north, where it includes some districts from the old Nelson Province.

Christchurch residents reported chimneys falling in through roofs, cracked ceilings and collapsed brick walls.

[10] A local state of emergency was declared at 10:16 am on 4 September for the city, and evacuations of parts were planned to begin later in the day.

[16] Although lower on the moment magnitude scale than the quake of September 2010, the intensity and violence of the ground shaking was measured to be VIII on the MMI, which is among the strongest ever recorded globally in an urban area due to the shallowness and proximity of the epicentre.

[18] Many buildings and landmarks were severely damaged, including the iconic Shag Rock and Christchurch Cathedral.

Phone lines and power were lost in some suburbs, and liquefaction surfaced mainly in the eastern areas of the city which were worst affected following the aftershocks.

The British Isles remains the largest region of origin, accounting for 36.5 percent of the overseas-born population in Canterbury.

[32] For the year ended March 2022, the manufacturing industry was the largest contributor to the Canterbury regional economy, at $4.1 billion.

During the interwar period, agricultural productivity was boosted by the introduction of mechanization, lime and the improvement of seed stocks.

Like much of the Canterbury-Otago tussock grasslands the Canterbury Plains have been highly modified since human settlement and now support a large agricultural industry.

Prior to the arrival of Māori settlers in the 13th century, much of the modern Canterbury region was covered in scrub and beech forests.

By the 19th century, only ten percent of this forest cover remained, and the European settlers introduced several new exotic grass, lupin, pine and macrocarpa that gradually supplanted the native vegetation.

Kaikōura was too small to function as an independent unitary authority and was moved under the jurisdiction of the Canterbury Regional Council in 1992.

In contrast to Christchurch, much of the surrounding Canterbury region is dominated by the National Party due to its ties to rural farming and business interests.

The large Kaikōura electorate covers all of the Marlborough Region and northern Canterbury and is represented by National MP Stuart Smith.

The substantial Waitaki electorate, held by National MP Miles Anderson, covers most of South Canterbury and neighbouring North Otago.

State Highway 1 runs the length of Canterbury, connecting north to Blenheim and the Cook Strait ferry terminal at Picton and south to Oamaru, Dunedin and Invercargill.

Regular flights operate from Christchurch to most major centres in New Zealand, as well as Australia, the Pacific Islands and eastern Asia.

Timaru's Richard Pearse Airport serves South Canterbury with daily flights to Wellington.

Sport in Canterbury has developed from the time of the initial settlement by British migrants, and remains an important part of community life.

[50] Canterbury was the location used in the filming The Lord of the Rings for the fictional city of Edoras, Rohan, on Mount Sunday, as well as Helm's deep backdrop, several miles down the valley.