Shannon is a small town in the Horowhenua District of New Zealand's North Island. it is located 28 kilometres southwest of Palmerston North and 15 kilometres northeast of Levin. The main activities in the district are dairy, sheep, and mixed farming. Mangaore (5 kilometres east) is the residential township for the nearby Mangahao hydro-electric power station, which was the second power station to be built in New Zealand and the first to be built by the government. The power station is the oldest still supplying power to New Zealand grid. The Manawatu River lies to the west of the town. A large percentage of the population is Māori with the local primary school representing kaupapa Māori. History Shannon originally adjoined extensive swamps and was a headquarters for flax milling. The land on which the township later stood was part of an endowment of acquired about 1881 by the Wellington and Manawatu Railway Company (WMR). At first the company had intended to extend its railway from Levin to Foxton, but afterwards it proceeded to develop and open up the endowment area. Accordingly, the line was laid along the present route via Shannon. The town is considered to have been founded on 8 March 1887 when the first auction of town land was held. Shannon was named after George Vance Shannon (1842–1920), a director of the WMR. It was constituted a borough in 1917. Mangahao Power Station tragedy On 2 July 1922 seven workers were poisoned by carbon monoxide while digging the tunnels for the Mangahao Power Station. When the extractor fan broke down, Bernard Butler and foreman Alfred Maxwell were killed by suffocation from the fumes being emitted by their oil engines. A subsequent search party of five of their colleagues also suffocated and perished in the tunnel. Demographics Shannon is defined by Statistics New Zealand as a small urban area and covers . It had an estimated population of as of with a population density of people per km2. Shannon had a population of 1,398 at the 2018 New Zealand census, an increase of 162 people (13.1%) since the 2013 census, and an increase of 36 people (2.6%) since the 2006 census. There were 537 households. There were 681 males and 720 females, giving a sex ratio of 0.95 males per female. The median age was 40.4 years (compared with 37.4 years nationally), with 291 people (20.8%) aged under 15