Explore Auckland

Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki opened in 1888 as New Zealand's first permanent public art gallery, in a château-style building with a clock tower below Albert Park. A new wing with timber-lined canopies, opened in 2011, doubled its space. The collection covers New Zealand and Māori art, Pacific works and international painting and sculpture.

The Sky Tower is a 328-metre telecommunications and observation tower completed in 1997 at the corner of Victoria and Federal Streets, as part of the SkyCity complex in central Auckland. Lifts climb to the main observation level 186 metres above the street, which looks out over the Waitematā Harbour and the city's volcanic cones; the SkyWalk and SkyJump start higher up.

St Patrick's Cathedral, formally the Cathedral of St Patrick and St Joseph, is the mother church of the Catholic Diocese of Auckland, on Wyndham Street in the city centre. The brick Gothic Revival church was built in 1884–85 and 1906–07 to designs from Edward Mahoney's firm, on land Bishop Pompallier acquired in 1841, and is the oldest Catholic cathedral in New Zealand.

The New Zealand Maritime Museum occupies a former wharf shed on Hobson Wharf at the Viaduct Harbour in central Auckland. Its exhibitions follow New Zealand's history on the sea, from the first Polynesian voyagers and European immigrant ships to America's Cup racing yachts, and heritage vessels such as the scow Ted Ashby and the steam tug SS Puke are berthed alongside.

The Auckland Domain is a 75-hectare park in Grafton, laid out from 1843 and the oldest in the city, filling the explosion crater and tuff ring of the Pukekawa volcano. The Auckland War Memorial Museum stands on the crater rim, sports fields cover its floor, and the Domain Wintergardens with two glasshouses, a fernery in an old quarry and the duck ponds lie on the north side.

Auckland War Memorial Museum stands on the rim of the Pukekawa volcano in the Auckland Domain, in a neoclassical building opened in 1929 and enlarged in the 1950s. Its galleries cover Māori and Pacific collections, including a carved meeting house and a war canoe, New Zealand's natural history and volcanoes, and the halls of memory for the country's war dead.

Holy Trinity Cathedral on Parnell Road is the seat of the Anglican Bishop of Auckland. Its foundation stone was laid in 1957, the chancel was consecrated in 1973, and the Bishop Selwyn Chapel completed the building in 2017; the nave holds a large expanse of stained glass. Beside it stands St Mary's, a wooden Gothic Revival church by Benjamin Mountfort completed in 1897.

The Auckland Harbour Bridge carries State Highway 1 across the Waitematā Harbour between St Marys Bay and Northcote. The steel truss bridge opened in 1959 with four lanes, and two cantilevered lanes were added on each side in 1969; it is 1,020 metres long, with a main span rising 43 metres above high water. It has no footpath, and is seen from Westhaven and Northcote Point.

Maungawhau / Mount Eden is a 196-metre scoria cone, the highest volcano on the Auckland isthmus, last erupting about 28,000 years ago. Terraces and storage pits of a large Māori pā mark its slopes, and a path circles the 50-metre-deep crater, Te Kapua kai a Mataoho. The summit, with views over the city, has been closed to private vehicles since 2016.

MOTAT, the Museum of Transport and Technology, was founded in 1960 at Western Springs to preserve Auckland's trams and early New Zealand technology. Its two sites, on Great North Road and at the Aviation Hall, are linked by a heritage tramway. Exhibits include aircraft, locomotives, the brick pumphouse of 1877 and hands-on science displays.

Auckland Zoo opened in 1922 on Motions Road beside Western Springs Park and covers 16 hectares. Its tracks group animals by region, with giraffes and zebras, red pandas and orangutans, and Te Wao Nui, opened in 2011, where kiwi, kea, takahē and tuatara live among native New Zealand plants. The zoo also runs a veterinary hospital for injured wildlife.

Kelly Tarlton's Sea Life Aquarium opened in 1985 on Tamaki Drive, east of central Auckland, inside disused sewage storage tanks. The diver Kelly Tarlton built it around curved acrylic tunnels that pass beneath sharks and rays; other areas hold sub-Antarctic king and gentoo penguins, a turtle rescue centre and a replica of Scott's Antarctic hut.

Cornwall Park in Epsom was given to the people of Auckland by John Logan Campbell in 1901 and, with the adjoining Maungakiekie / One Tree Hill Domain, forms about 270 hectares of parkland. Tree-lined avenues and a working farm with sheep and cattle lead up to the summit of Maungakiekie, a volcanic cone and former pā crowned by an obelisk.

Stardome Observatory, known as Te Whatu Stardome, is Auckland's public observatory and planetarium in the Maungakiekie / One Tree Hill Domain. The observatory opened in 1967 and the 11-metre domed planetarium in 1997. It presents fulldome shows on astronomy and Māori star knowledge, and after evening shows visitors look through its telescopes when the sky is clear.

Rangitoto Island is the youngest volcano of the Auckland volcanic field, formed in eruptions around 1450 and 1500 CE, and rises 260 metres above the Hauraki Gulf. Ferries from downtown Auckland reach Rangitoto Wharf, from where tracks cross bare lava fields and a large pōhutukawa forest to the summit crater and to lava caves.