The Mackenzie Basin (popularly and traditionally known as the Mackenzie Country), is an elliptical intermontane basin, located in the Mackenzie and Waitaki Districts, near the centre of the South Island of New Zealand. It is the largest such basin in New Zealand. Historically famous mainly for sheep farming, the sparsely populated area is now also a popular tourism destination.
The basin was named in the 1850s by and after James Mckenzie (or in his native Scottish Gaelic: Seumas MacCoinneach), a shepherd and sheep thief of Scottish origin, who herded his stolen flocks in what was then an area almost totally empty of any human habitation, though Māori previously lived there intermittently. After his capture, the area was soon divided up amongst new sheep pasture stations in 1857.
Read more about Mackenzie Basin: Geography, Settlement and Activities, Environmental Issues
Famous quotes containing the word mackenzie:
“People sometimes tell me that they prefer barbarism to civilisation. I doubt if they have given it a long enough trial. Like the people of Alexandria, they are bored by civilisation; but all the evidence suggests that the boredom of barbarism is infinitely greater.”
—Kenneth MacKenzie Clark, Baron of Saltwood (1903–1983)