History

There were only 500 Māori living in Canterbury when European settlers first arrived in the mid-19th century. They were part of the Ngāi Tahu tribe that occupied the South Island. Decimated by civil wars from 1810 to 1815, the tribe was almost exterminated between 1830 and 1832 in attacks by the northern Ngāti Toa, led by Te Rauparaha.
In 1848 Edward Gibbon Wakefield and John Robert Godley established the Canterbury Association to plan a Church of England colony in the South Island. The province began to develop about 1850 and during this era Benjamin Mountfort, as the first provincial architect, designed many civic and ecclesiastical buildings in the Gothic Revival style. The Canterbury Province was formed in 1853 following the passage of the New Zealand Constitution Act 1852. The province was abolished, along with other provinces of New Zealand, in 1876. Since human settlement the Canterbury Plains have been highly modified and now support a large agricultural industry. Very little of the original forest cover now remains. However, the amount of forest on Banks Peninsula is increasing after being depleted to about 1 percent of its original forest cover.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Canterbury,_New_Zealand

Click here to view large version of map.