Old Invercargill
Invercargill was raised to city status on March 1, 1930, not that it occasioned much in the way of fanfare. There were certainly no overbrimming public celebrations, perhaps because the Depression was biting.
The public reports were nothing if not sedate:
"Having obtained within its narrow borders a population of over 20,000, Invercargill is to have conferred on it the status of a city."
The good people of the now certified city prided themselves that this had been achieved without doing a Wanganui and expanding the city boundaries to rope in sufficient population.
When the first borough council was elected in 1871 the population of Invercargill was below 2,000.
Population growth surged conspicuously in 1946–57 from 23,460 to 30,508, though about 1,200 of this was due to the inclusion of the Borough of South Invercargill in the city.
There was an even greater increase in 1957–68 from 30,500 to 47,800.
By 1970 the population was 49,300.
By the 1990s the city was dropping population alarmingly, but the census-night provisional count for this year showed this had been stemmed, with 50,500 people in Invercargill.
That was up 380 from 2001 when a 5.9 percent fall in population was recorded.