Te Aro (formerly also known as Te Aro Flat) is an inner-city suburb of Wellington, New Zealand. It comprises the southern part of the central business district including the majority of the city's entertainment district and covers the mostly flat area of city between The Terrace and Cambridge Terrace at the base of Mount Victoria. Geography and history Waimapihi Stream is now mostly culverted, but formerly ran from the area around Zealandia and down Aro Valley then past what is now the western end of Te Aro Park and on to the sea. The name means "the stream (or bathing place) of Mapihi, a chieftainess of those iwi". Te Aro Pā was east of the stream near what is now lower Taranaki Street. Waitangi stream flowed from Newtown, past the Basin Reserve and down to the shore at the eastern side of Te Aro, forming a large swamp that was used by Māori for food (eels and shellfish) and flax gathering. The 1855 Wairarapa earthquake uplifted Te Aro and drained the swamp. The area around the former swampy foreshore was redeveloped and opened in 2006 as Waitangi Park. The Te Aro Reclamation Act of 1879 made possible reclamation of 40 acres of land on the foreshore as far as what is now Cable Street. Early European settlement in Te Aro was centred on commerce and working-class people, as opposed to Thorndon which was the centre of official business. By the 1880s Te Aro was packed with working-class houses and businesses catering to the workers, and the area had gained a reputation for being poorly-drained, dirty and disease-ridden. Typhoid was prevalent in the city in the early 1890s and most deaths from the disease occurred in the slums of Te Aro. Almost half of Wellington's deaths in the 1918 influenza pandemic occurred in Te Aro. The situation gradually improved as new suburbs such as Newtown, Miramar and Karori opened up and city infrastructure was developed. In 1945 Wellington City Council held a conference to discuss the slums of Te Aro, which led to the widening of Taranaki Street. Te Aro Pā A war party of Te Āti Awa and others migrated from Taranaki to Wellington and established the pā in the 1820s. Members of the New Zealand Company arrived in Wellington in 1839 and laid out a town plan which paid no regard to the several pā in the area. In