Blackball, West Coast Map

About Blackball, West Coast

Blackball is a locality in the West Coast Region of New Zealand. It is a small community with a population of 276. It sits at an elevation of around 89 m above sea level. It lies approximately 21 km east-northeast of Greymouth, the regional capital. Blackball is located at 42.3667°S, 171.4167°E. It observes New Zealand Time (NZST/NZDT). Statistics New Zealand classifies the area as a rural settlement.

Blackball rests in a valley cradled by steep, forested hills, a place where the air often carries the damp, earthy scent of native bush. It lies 156.5 km north-north-west of Rolleston (from Rolleston: bearing 329°T), and is situated 14.1 km east-north-east of Runanga. The landscape here is a tapestry of deep greens, from the dense canopy of beech forest that cloaks the surrounding slopes to the mossy banks of the Grey River/Mawheranui, which flows approximately six kilometres to the east. The terrain is rugged, a testament to the forces that shaped this part of the West Coast Region, with many a small stream carving its way down from the higher ground, feeding into the larger waterway. The light, particularly in the late afternoon, can be magnificent, filtering through the dense foliage in shafts of gold, illuminating the rich, dark soil and casting long shadows across the narrow valley floor.

The history of Blackball is inextricably linked to the coal that lies beneath its soil, a story of hard graft and pioneering spirit that shaped its very character. For decades, mining was the lifeblood of this locality, drawing a hardy breed of people who carved a living from the earth, their presence leaving an indelible mark on the place. Though the era of large-scale coal extraction has largely passed, the echo of that industrial past still resonates, a quiet hum beneath the surface of everyday life. Today, while the economy has diversified, the resilience and independent spirit fostered by those earlier days remain, a distinctive feature of Blackball, where the memory of the mine is woven into the fabric of the community.

About This Blackball Map Page

This page provides an embedded street and satellite map of Blackball, West Coast, New Zealand at coordinates -42.36667, 171.41667. Use the Map and Satellite buttons to switch views, the plus and minus buttons to zoom, and Fullscreen to fill the screen.

Search Maps opens a second, independent map with four things the embedded map cannot do. It searches OpenStreetMap for any New Zealand town, suburb or landmark by name. It offers LINZ topographic maps as a base layer — the official Topo250 and Topo50 sheets, switching scale automatically as you zoom, and the standard reference for tramping, hunting and back-country travel. It offers LINZ aerial imagery down to 5cm resolution in urban areas. And it can take a single GPS fix from your device and report your position as both an NZTM2000 grid reference and plain latitude and longitude — the grid reference being what New Zealand search and rescue services work from. Map tiles require mobile coverage, but a GPS position does not, so the coordinates remain correct even where the map itself cannot load.

My Location & Navigate starts the vector-tile navigator: live turn-by-turn driving directions from your current position to any destination, with spoken guidance, lane hints and automatic re-routing.

Live weather conditions with current observations and a 7-day forecast are powered by Open-Meteo. Real-time New Zealand and world news feeds keep the page current, while an editorial description provides background on Blackball.

Blackball sits within the West Coast Region. Location data is drawn from the GeoNames geographical database and verified by coordinates, ensuring the correct Blackball is identified even where the name is shared across multiple New Zealand localities.