It's official - the country's capital has moved to the mainland, with Wellington featuring in a special Lonely Planet guidebook dedicated to the South Island.
The New Zealand's South Island guidebook, released last week, begins its travel section with a "bonus chapter on the Wellington region" - which includes travel tips to popular South Island destinations such as Masterton, Paraparaumu and the Hutt Valley.
A Lonely Planet spokesman said Wellington was a major travel hub for the South Island and deserved to be included as a chapter.
However, Invercargill Mayor Tim Shadbolt - still incensed after a previous guidebook referred to the city as a place of bad haircuts and checked shirts - said Lonely Planet writers were perhaps unaware Wellington was in the North Island.
Confusion could have arisen because so many Wellingtonians preferred to holiday in the South Island.
"They want to be South Islanders," he said.
Positively Wellington Tourism chief executive David Perks said "it appears Wellington's popularity is such that it can't even be bound by geography".
"The South Island's a great place and as New Zealand's capital of absolutely, positively, pretty much everything, it's only natural we're part of it, too.
It's a bit like getting famous in your field and a university deciding to give you an honorary doctorate."
The 444-page guidebook features many of the same comments as the 14th edition of the Lonely Planet New Zealand guide.
Dunedin is described as the "definitive student party town", Queenstown the "premier tourist town", Oamaru "has some of New Zealand's best-preserved historic commercial buildings", and Cromwell has a "spectacularly ugly giant fruit salad".
The province fared well on the lists of things to do, with four activities - skiing Treble Cone, Queenstown bungy, surfing Dunedin and Otago Central Rail Trail making the top 10 list of adventure activities, Tunnel Beach named one of the best walks, and the Tangata Whenua Gallery at Otago Museum named the best cultural activity.
