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Eden Park
Garden of Eden[1]
200px
Eden Park viewed from Mount Eden
Location	Reimers Ave, Kingsland, Auckland, New Zealand
Coordinates	36°52′30″S 174°44′41″E / 36.875°S 174.74472°E / -36.875; 174.74472Coordinates: 36°52′30″S 174°44′41″E / 36.875°S 174.74472°E / -36.875; 174.74472
Opened	1900
Owner	Eden Park Trust Board
Operator	Eden Park Trust Board
Surface	Grass
Capacity	50,000. (60,000 with temporary seating)[2]
Tenants
Blues (Super Rugby) Auckland Rugby Football Union (ITM Cup) Auckland Aces (State Championship/State Shield/State Twenty20)

Eden Park is the biggest stadium in Auckland, New Zealand. It is used primarily for rugby union in winter and cricket in summer (although most domestic cricket games are played on the Outer Oval, which is situated next to the main stadium). The ground also occasionally hosts rugby league matches. To accommodate all three sports, the cricket pitch is removable. The ground is located three kilometres southwest of Auckland's CBD, straddling the boundary between the Kingsland and Mount Eden suburbs.

It became the first stadium to host two Rugby World Cup Finals in 2011, having held the inaugural final in 1987. It was also the venue for the Rugby League World Cup final in 1988.

History[link]

The Eden Park area has been in use for sport since around 1900. Eden Park has been the home to Auckland Cricket since 1910, and has also hosted many international Tests and One Day International cricket matches.

In 1950, Eden Park was the principal venue for the IV British Empire Games, where the Opening Ceremony and the Track and Field Events were held.

In 1981, Eden Park was buzzed by a Cessna light airplane on the occasion of the third and final New Zealand v. South African test match of the South African Springbok rugby tour. The pilot, who was a staunch anti-apartheid activist, had threatened to land the plane on the pitch, but instead just dumped onto the field leaflets, flares, a parachute-supported banner reading "Biko", and flour bombs, one of which felled a New Zealand player.

The original grandstand that was situated at the north-west corner of the main ground was relocated to the west side of the number two ground in the late 1980s. The number two ground also served as supplemental car parking at major sporting events.

Eden Park is the home of the Blues Super Rugby team, and has also been the home of the Auckland Rugby Football Union since 1925, hosting Auckland's home games in the NPC and its successor the ITM Cup. The ground has also been a frequent host of international test rugby. It hosted the final match of the Rugby World Cup. In a switch of codes, Eden Park hosted the 1988 Rugby League World Cup final between New Zealand and Australia which drew a sell out crowd.

An American college football game, the Haka Bowl, was scheduled to be played at Eden Park in 1996, but was cancelled because the organisers could not make required financial guarantees. It would have been the first collegiate American football game in New Zealand, and the first "bowl game" anywhere in the Southern Hemisphere.

It is scheduled to be the focal point of the 2011 Rugby World Cup, with the opening ceremony, first pool game, two quarter finals, both semi finals, the third-place play-off and the final taking place at Eden Park, as well as numerous other pool games.

Eden Park is a very successful venue for the All Blacks. They have won 56 of the 69 test matches played there which is about 81%.

Eden Park held the last rugby world cup in 2011. Won every single game. ^[3] The All Blacks have not lost there since their defeat against France in 1994.

Panorama of Eden Park in 2010

Redevelopment Plans[link]

Eden Park final design for redevelopment. Completed in 2011.

Capacity[link]

Eden Park used to have a crowd capacity of 42,000 for cricket, and 47,500 for rugby.^[4] This is the largest of any New Zealand sports arena. There are no standing areas. Temporary seating in front of the ASB Stand and the West Stand (usually only used for international rugby matches) is required for the capacity of 45,472 to be reached. Due to sight-screens and the larger area required for cricket matches, cricket capacity is less.

A $256 million redevelopment was completed in October 2010, providing a permanent capacity of 50,000 and ability to add a further 10,000 temporary seats for the 2011 Rugby World Cup finals.^[2]

Expansion[link]

Cranes building the new South Stand in 2009

Looking south on the construction of the West Stand at Eden Park

The redevelopment project includes a new three-tier South stand that will replace the old South and South West stands with a capacity of 24,000 and a new three-tier East stand to replace the Terraces. The number of covered seats will increase from 23,000 to 38,000. The redeveloped Eden Park will also feature an internal concourse that will allow people to circulate around the grounds inside the stadium and world-class facilities, including food and beverage outlets, toilets and corporate areas, are being promised. Public transport upgrades are also planned, including a transport hub, featuring a pedestrian bridge between the stadium and Kingsland Station, and a bus drop-off area. The open plan approach to the design and establishment of a community centre and green space, as well as the removal of the perimeter fence, all mean that the stadium is set to become more publicly accessible and a part of the neighbourhood.

There have been public concerns about the height of the new structure and its shading effect on many nearby houses. Auckland City Council announced that it had received 470 submissions towards Eden Park's resource consent application – over 300 of which were in favour of the redevelopment. On 26 January 2007, Eden Park received resource consent, but 91 conditions were imposed. The consent permits the building of new stands in place of the terraces and south stand, but does not include consent for the NZ$ 385 million 'full option' which would include covered seating.^[5]

Possible alternative stadium for the RWC[link]

In September 2006 it was announced that instead of Eden Park, the Government and Auckland City Council were assessing the possibility of a new stadium on Auckland's waterfront to host the 2011 Rugby World Cup. This assessment was part of the Government's formal due diligence process on the decision to redevelop Eden Park. The Government had said it would assist with the funding if a new stadium was built.^{[citation needed]}

The Government announced in a report in November 2006 that it would favour a new stadium on the Auckland City waterfront, which would have meant that the Eden Park redevelopment would not have gone ahead, and that eventually, new options for its use or redevelopment would have to be developed.

After the Auckland City Council and the Auckland Regional Council differed in their support for the new stadium, the Government changed to supporting the redevelopment of Eden Park, subject to suitable resolution of the design, funding and governance issues.^[6]

IRB Rugby World Cup 2011[link]

Eden Park was the largest stadium selected for the 2011 Rugby World Cup. After the 2011 Canterbury earthquakes, the two quarter final matches (scheduled to be held in the AMI Stadium in Christchurch), were moved to Eden Park. Eden Park therefore played host to the opening ceremony and also hosted the following 11 matches:

Date	Team #1	Res.	Team #2	Round	Attendance
2011-09-09	New Zealand	41–10	Tonga	Pool A (opening match)	60,214
2011-09-17	Australia	6–15	Ireland	Pool C	58,678
2011-09-24	New Zealand	37–17	France	Pool A	60,856
2011-09-25	Fiji	7–27	Samoa	Pool D	60,327
2011-10-01	England	16–12	Scotland	Pool B	58,213
2011-10-08	England	12–19	France	Quarter Final 2	49,105
2011-10-09	New Zealand	33–10	Argentina	Quarter Final 4	57,192
2011-10-15	Wales	8–9	France	Semi Final 1	58,630
2011-10-16	Australia	6–20	New Zealand	Semi Final 2	60,087
2011-10-21	Wales	18–21	Australia	Bronze Final	53,014
2011-10-23	New Zealand	8-7	France	Final	61,079

On October 23rd 2011, Eden Park became the first ground to host two Rugby World Cup finals, after hosting the inaugural tournament final in 1987. Also, the four teams that reached the semi-finals in 2011 were the same teams that reached the semi-finals in 1987. Furthermore, the third-place and final matches consist of the same national teams as in 1987.

ICC Cricket World Cup 2015[link]

This stadium has also been selected for the 2015 Cricket World Cup which will jointly be hosted by Australia and New Zealand.

Rugby league[link]

The New Zealand Warriors played their first ever NRL match at Eden Park to start the 2011 NRL season in front of a crowd of 38,405.^[7] The Warriors will once again start their season with their first home match of the 2012 season at Eden Park.^[8]

International Rugby League has also played at this venue. Including the 1985/1988 World Cup final and two Four Nations matches in 2010. All rugby league matches had pulled crowds over 44,000.^[9]

In 2012 the annual ANZAC Test between Australia and New Zealand was played at Eden park.

Football[link]

Eden Park has played host to three New Zealand National Team games; friendlies against South Africa and FK Austria Wien in 1947 and 1957 respectively, and an Olympic qualifier against Israel for the Seoul Olympics in 1988. They were defeated in all three games.^[10]

On the 19th of November 2011, Eden Park hosted its first game of professional club football. The A-League regular season fixture between Wellington Phoenix and Adelaide United resulted in a 1-1 draw. The game attracted 20,078 supporters, a new attendance record for the Phoenix.^[11]

Auckland's A-League club, the New Zealand Knights, played at North Harbour Stadium in the outer northern suburb of Albany, before they folded in 2007.

See also[link]

• 2011 Rugby World Cup
• Stadium New Zealand
• List of Test cricket grounds
• List of international cricket centuries at Eden Park
• 1985/1988 World Cup

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Eden Park

• Eden Park website
• All Blacks.com
• Redevelopment Plans

Look up Eden in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

Eden may refer to:

• Garden of Eden, a Biblical place

Film and television[link]

• Eden (TV channel)
• Eden (TV series), a 2002 British reality series
• Eden (1993 TV series), starring Barbara Alyn Woods
• Eden (Aladdin)
• Eden Lord, a Nip/Tuck character
• Eden (film), by Amos Gitai

Literature[link]

• EDEN (Mag Garden), an online manga magazine
• Eden (novel), a science fiction book by Stanisław Lem
• Eden (play), by Steve Carter
• Eden*, a visual novel by Minori
• Eden: It's an Endless World!, a manga by Hiroki Endo

Music[link]

• Eden (band), an Israeli vocal group
• Eden (Sarah Brightman album)
• Eden (Everything But the Girl album)
• Eden (Luna Sea album)
• "Eden" (song), by Hooverphonic
• Eden Electronics, a bass amplification company
• Eden Studios, a recording studio
• Eden, an album by Akino Arai
• Eden, an album by Étienne Daho
• "Eden", a song by Phil Wickham on the album Heaven & Earth
• Eden, a stage name of ABC member Fiona Russell-Powell

Geography[link]

United States[link]

• Eden, Idaho
• Eden, Indiana
• Eden, Kansas
• Eden, Maryland
• Eden, Mississippi
• Eden, New York
• Eden, North Carolina
• Eden, South Dakota
• Eden, Texas
• Eden, Utah
• Eden, Vermont
• Eden, Wisconsin (disambiguation)
• Eden, Wyoming
• Eden Township (disambiguation)

Elsewhere[link]

• Eden, New South Wales, Australia
  • Electoral district of Eden
• Eden, Cumbria, England
• Eden, County Antrim, Northern Ireland
• Eden District Municipality, South Africa

Sport[link]

• Eden AFC, a former New Zealand association football club
• Eden Gardens, a sports stadium in Kolkata, India
• Eden Park, a sports stadium in Auckland, New Zealand
• Stadion Eden, a sports stadium in Prague-Vršovice, Czech Republic

Organizations[link]

• Eden Foods Inc.
• Eden Foundation, a nonprofit agriculture project
• Eden Games, a video game developer
• Eden Project, an environmental attraction
• Eden Theological Seminary
• European Distance and E-learning Network, an international education association

Other uses[link]

• Eden (name), including a list of people with the name Eden
• Eden (newspaper)
• Eden (Gardner, Louisiana), a historic place
• Eden, High Wycombe, a shopping centre
• Eden growth model, a bacterial growth concept
• Camp Eden, Iraq
• VIA Eden, a computer processor family
• Education Data Exchange Network, a set of statistical reports
• MBDB, a psychedelic drug
• Eden, an empirical modelling language

See also[link]

• Mount Eden (disambiguation)
• River Eden (disambiguation)
• Eden Water, Scotland
• Aden (disambiguation)
• EDUN
• All pages beginning with "Eden"
• All pages with titles containing "Eden"

This disambiguation page lists articles associated with the same title. If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article.

This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (December 2010)

The examples and perspective in this article deal primarily with the United States and do not represent a worldwide view of the subject. Please improve this article and discuss the issue on the talk page. (December 2010)

Central Park, New York, the most visited city park in the United States

Yoyogi Park, Tokyo, Japan

The Summer Garden, St. Petersburg, Russia.

The Queen Elizabeth Park, Vancouver, Canada

Englischer Garten, Munich, Germany

Parade Gardens, a park in Bath, England

Public park, Tours, France.

Laleh Park's southwestern entrance with a statue of Biruni, a medieval Persian astronomer. Tehran, Iran.

A park is a protected area, in its natural or semi-natural state, or planted, and set aside for human recreation and enjoyment, or for the protection of wildlife or natural habitats. It may consist of rocks, soil, water, flora and fauna and grass areas. Many parks are legally protected by law.

Wilderness parks are intact and undeveloped areas used mainly by wild species. Protected wilderness zones are required for some wild species to survive. Some protected parks focus mainly on the survival of a few threatened species, such as gorillas or chimpanzees.

History[link]

The first parks were deer parks, land set aside for hunting by royalty and the aristocracy in medieval times. They had walls or thick hedges around them to keep game in and people out.

These game preserves evolved into landscaped parks set around mansions and country houses from the sixteenth century onwards. These may have served as hunting grounds but they also proclaimed the owner's wealth and status. An aesthetic of landscape design began in these stately home parks where the natural landscape was enhanced by landscape architects such as Capability Brown. As cities became crowded, the private hunting grounds became places for the public.

With the Industrial revolution parks took on a new meaning as areas set aside to preserve a sense of nature in the cities and towns. Sporting activity came to be a major use for these urban parks. Areas of outstanding natural beauty were also set aside as national parks to prevent their being spoilt by uncontrolled development.

Government-owned or -operated parks[link]

National parks[link]

A national park is a reserve of land, usually, but not always declared and owned by a national government, protected from most human development and pollution. Although this may be so, it is not likely that the government of a specific area owns it, rather the community itself. National parks are a protected area of IUCN category II. The largest national park in the world is the Northeast Greenland National Park, which was established in 1974.

In the United States the concept of preserving landscapes for the pleasure of the people was established on June 30, 1864, when President Abraham Lincoln signed the bill creating the Yosemite Grant. A policy of preservation, rather than co-usage as in the National Forests, where grazing, farming and logging are licensed, was implemented four decades later during the presidential administration of Teddy Roosevelt, and Yosemite became a national park. Tourism and, later, recreation were the intended purposes of the lands Roosevelt set aside in the system. John Muir was instrumental in this effort.

These parks were termed national parks and today are looked after by the U.S. National Park Service. There are also national parks in many other countries.

Sub-national parks[link]

In Federal systems, many parks are managed by the local levels of government, rather than by the central government. In the United States these include state parks and in Canada provincial or territorial parks, except in Quebec where they are known as National Parks (see Quebec nationalism).

Urban parks[link]

A park is an area of open space provided for recreational use, usually owned and maintained by a local government. Parks commonly resemble savannas or open woodlands, the types of landscape that human beings find most relaxing.^{[citation needed]} Grass is typically kept short to discourage insect pests and to allow for the enjoyment of picnics and sporting activities. Trees are chosen for their beauty and to provide shade.

The world's first public park is claimed to be la Alameda de Hércules, in Seville. It is a promenaded public mall, urban garden and park built in 1574, within the historic center of Seville. It is located between the river Guadalquivir and the Macarena neighborhood. Other early parks include the City Park, in Budapest, Hungary, which was property of the Batthyány family. In 1808 an Imperial law converted it to the English style. Some years later the Count Batthyány ordered that it should be established as a public park. The earliest purpose built public park, although financed privately, was Princes Park in the Liverpool suburb of Toxteth. This was laid out to the designs of Joseph Paxton from 1842 and opened in 1843. The land on which the park was built was purchased by Richard Vaughan Yates, an iron merchant and philanthropist, in 1841 for £50,000. The creation of Princes Park showed great foresight and introduced a number of highly influential ideas. First and foremost was the provision of open space for the benefit of townspeople and local residents within an area that was being rapidly built up. Secondly it took the concept of the designed landscape as a setting for the suburban domicile, an idea pioneered by John Nash at Regent’s Park, and re-fashioned it for the provincial town in a most original way. Nash’s remodelling of St James’s Park from 1827 and the sequence of processional routes he created to link The Mall with Regent’s Park completely transformed the appearance of London’s West End. With the establishment of Princes Park in 1842, Joseph Paxton did something similar for the benefit of a provincial town, albeit one of international stature by virtue of its flourishing mercantile contingent. Liverpool had a burgeoning presence on the scene of global maritime trade before 1800 and during the Victorian era its wealth rivalled that of London itself.

The form and layout of Paxton’s ornamental grounds, structured about an informal lake within the confines of a serpentine carriageway, put in place the essential elements of his much imitated design for Birkenhead Park. The latter was commenced in 1843 with the help of public finance and deployed the ideas he pioneered at Princes Park on a more expansive scale. Frederick Law Olmstead visited Birkenhead Park in 1850 and praised its qualities. Indeed Paxton is widely credited as having been one of the principal influences on Olmstead and Calvert’s design for New York’s Central Park of 1857.

Another early public park is the Peel Park, Salford, England opened on 22 August 1846.^[1][2][3] Another possible claimant for status as the world's first public park is Boston Common (Boston, Massachusetts, USA), set aside in 1634, whose first recreational promenade, Tremont Mall, dates from 1728. True park status for the entire common seems to have emerged no later than 1830, when the grazing of cows was ended and renaming the Common as Washington Park was proposed (renaming the bordering Sentry Street to Park Street in 1808 already acknowledged the reality).

Parks can be divided into active and passive recreation areas. Active recreation is that which has an urban character and requires intensive development. It often involves cooperative or team activity, including playgrounds, ball fields, swimming pools, gymnasiums, and skateparks. Active recreation such as team sports, due to the need to provide substantial space to congregate, typically involves intensive management, maintenance, and high costs. Passive recreation, also called "low intensity recreation" is that which emphasizes the open-space aspect of a park and allows for the preservation of natural habitat. It usually involves a low level of development, such as rustic picnic areas, benches and trails. Passive recreation typically requires little management and can be provided at very low costs. Some open space managers provide nothing other than trails for physical activity in the form of walking, running, horse riding, mountain biking, snow shoeing, or cross-country skiing; or sedentary activity such as observing nature, bird watching, painting, photography, or picnicking. Limiting park or open space use to passive recreation over all or a portion of the park's area eliminates or reduces the burden of managing active recreation facilities and developed infrastructure. Many ski resorts combine active recreation facilities (ski lifts, gondolas, terrain parks, downhill runs, and lodges) with passive recreation facilities (cross-country ski trails).^{[citation needed]}

Many smaller neighborhood parks are receiving increased attention and valuation as significant community assets and places of refuge in heavily populated urban areas. Neighborhood groups around the world are joining together to support local parks that have suffered from urban decay and government neglect.

A linear park is a park that has a much greater length than width. A typical example of a linear park is a section of a former railway that has been converted into a park called a rail trail or greenway (i.e. the tracks removed, vegetation allowed to grow back). Parks are sometimes made out of oddly shaped areas of land, much like the vacant lots that often become city neighborhood parks. Linked parks may form a greenbelt.

Country parks[link]

In some countries, especially the United Kingdom, country parks are areas designated for recreation, and managed by local authorities. They are often located near urban populations, but they provide recreational facilities typical of the countryside rather than the town.

Private parks[link]

Private parks are owned by individuals or businesses and are used at the discretion of the owner. There are a few types of private parks, and some which once were privately maintained and used have now been made open to the public.

Hunting parks were originally areas maintained as open space where residences, industry and farming were not allowed, often originally so that nobility might have a place to hunt — see medieval deer park. These were known for instance, as deer parks (deer being originally a term meaning any wild animal). Many country houses in Great Britain and Ireland still have parks of this sort, which since the 18th century have often been landscaped for aesthetic effect. They are usually a mixture of open grassland with scattered trees and sections of woodland, and are often enclosed by a high wall. The area immediately around the house is the garden. In some cases this will also feature sweeping lawns and scattered trees; the basic difference between a country house's park and its garden is that the park is grazed by animals, but they are excluded from the garden.

Other uses[link]

The term park is also used in reference to industrial areas, often termed industrial parks. Some technology research areas are also called research parks. Small environmental areas, often part of urban renewal plans, are called pocket parks. The word park may also be used in community names, such as Oak Park or College Park. Sometimes the active recreational aspect may be expressed in the extreme of naming an amusement park, usually privately owned. A car park is an area of land or a building in which cars are parked.

An amusement park, or theme park is a generic term for a collection of rides and other entertainment attractions assembled for the purpose of entertainment.

See also[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Parks

• Conservation area
• Landscape architecture
• List of national parks
• Protected area
• Public Open Space
• Royal forest

References[link]

External links[link]

Look up park in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

• Essay on public parks
•  Frederick Law Olmsted (1879). "Park". The American Cyclopædia.