I can talk to some of the issues surrounding settlement, particularly the South Island of New Zealand in the late-nineteenth century. As u/1244235 has mentioned, it is primarily an accident of geography that led to wider settlement on the eastern coast here.

When you look at a map showing some of the topographical features of the South Island, you can see that the West Coast is much closer to the Southern Alps, meaning much less land available for settlement and exploitation, especially when compared with the Canterbury Plains, around Christchurch and the much more accessible land around Dunedin and Invercargill, to the south.

The availability of good harbours is another factor here. The size and accessibility of Dunedin Harbour helped make Dunedin the most populous New Zealand city of the mid/late-nineteenth century and while the West Coast has some comparably sized inlets, the surrounding mountains hem these features in and render them very inhospitable places by comparison.

This last point leads to one of the more interesting stories of settlement failure in the antipodes - the fate of the 'Jamestown' settlement in the 1870s.

Jamestown is a town in name only. Go looking for it and you'll find a nearly impenetrable expanse of New Zealand native bush, surrounded by mountains and accessible only by boat, on foot or by helicopter. Despite this, maps of the area still show an entire town, laid out on paper only, of neat little land parcels and reserves for schools and cemeteries, bordered by named streets.

The European settlement at Jamestown grew out of what historian John Hall-Jones calls the ‘dream of a western port, the nearest gateway to Australia’ [1], the brainchild of James MacAndrew the Superintendent of Otago. The area had been explored by Europeans as early as the first years of the 1860s, well after the more easily accessible centres of Christchurch and Dunedin had been first settled. The original name given to the lake was that of Kakapo, with the same name for the river which ran through it; however on official maps the lake’s name was quickly changed to ‘McKerrow’ and the river’s to ‘Hollyford’.[2] By 1868, a committee was convened to discuss the prospects for a settlement here.

The presence of Lake McKerrow so close to the sea, especially when seen on maps, led many to believe that the great western port of New Zealand could be established here. The optimism for settlement of the West Coast that abounded, especially in the press, at this time can be seen in this description of the area by the North Otago Times:

“The country is described as consisting principally of terraces and hills, with the occasional strip of flat land, all more or less timbered. The timber in many localities is very fine, and no doubt will ere long support of itself a thriving industry, sites already having been taken up for the establishment of sawmills. Fortunately, too, there is every facility for shipment and exportation, Lake McKerrow being a magnificent sheet of water, with deep draught to the very edge, while there is a good entrance from the sea, or, at any rate, one that can be made so at a very trifling expense.

The soil, too, is spoken of as of fair quality, enriched with vegetable deposits and capable of growing nearly all kinds of roots and cereals; while the whole district is represented as well watered. The climate is described as excellent, and there can be no doubt that many of the requirements necessary to the support of a thriving population are to be found at Martins Bay.”[3]

Things began to go wrong at almost the first instance of exploration to the area by surveyors in the late-1860s, when the ship Charles Edward struck a snag in the deep water channel between the sea and the lake and ran ashore. She was found to have sustained a two foot long rip in her starboard side and was left floundering in six feet of water at low tide. [4] She was eventually re-floated and managed to make her way back to Nelson under steam. [5]

Despite setbacks, settlers were encouraged to the area by various official incentives. One being that the cost of land parcels was set relatively cheaply, with the understanding that the land be developed within a certain amount of time.

The 'trifling expense' to make the harbour safe was never undertaken and although Jamestown was laid out and land parcels sold to settlers with promises of infrastructure development, these developments never came. The overland route between the settlement and Queenstown was about 100km and mostly consisted of a small track cut through the mountains and valleys. There was no road and one was never made. John Robertson, who undertook the contract to carry letters between Jamestown and Queenstown, had his health ruined by two years’ worth of the toil and hardship involved in traversing the country between the lakes. [6]

Between about 1870 and 1880 the settlers of the area had to endure every sort of privation the rugged land of the West Coast had to offer. Principally the lack of reliable communications by road or sea with the settled communities further up the coast or inland meant that supplies could not be regularly or reliably shipped into the area. The mid-1870s saw the kind of starvation conditions which led one housewife to boil up seaweed with milk in order to feed her children. [7] In theory, a government subsidised steamer was to call at the settlement every two months, bringing supplies. However, sea conditions often meant that a landing couldn’t be safely attempted and the settlers would have to go without fresh supplies. According to Alice MacKenzie by the time she and her family arrived at the settlement in 1876, every successful arrival of a steamer would be welcomed by another handful of settlers waiting on the beach to be taken away. [8]

The perils inherent in the forested, damp West Coast manifested themselves in the shape of sand-flies, disease and no nearby help in the case of accidents. The Webb family lost two of their children in one night to a sickness caused by some ‘bright coloured berries’. MacKenzie gives a moving account of the father’s desperate slog through the wet, midnight forest to the cemetery reserve to bury the body of one of his daughters, who he feared might be infectious, returning only hours later to lay the body of her younger brother beside her. [9]

By 1880 the settlement at Jamestown was dead. Many had died, lots had moved back east to more easily managed lands and some had moved on to scratching a living closer to the coast. With the failure of Jamestown died the dream of a west coast harbour to rival those of the east.

The above description is perhaps one of the best illustrations as to how the geography of the South Island affected the development of the West Coast. There is also a human element here, too. Although the desire to develop a western harbour was there initially, there wasn't the will to spend the money on infrastructure or support for the fledgling settlement - without this, there could never have been any meaningful success.

1. Hall-Jones, John (1987) Martins Bay, Craig Printing

2. Otago Daily Times, Issue 590, 7 November 1863

3. North Otago Times, Volume XIV, Issue 515, 22 April 1870

4. MacKenzie, Alice (1970 revised ed.) Pioneers of Martins Bay: The Story of New Zealand’s most Remote Settlement, Whitcombe and Tombs

5. Southland Times, Issue 1237, 15 April 1870

6,7,8,9. MacKenzie (1970)

Ease of colonisation mainly, the west coast is primarily lacking in fresh water, other than in the south west, the same problem exists for southernly aproaches. The north has water but also more dagerous environment, this leaves the east as the main candidate for a colony. The east coast of Australia backs onto the great dividing range, this causes a rain shadow effect this causes rain clouds to drop rain either on or before they get to the mountains. This makes the east coast of australia much more habitable as farming is easier and dangerous animals are more rare.

The difficulties in colonising australia can be still seen in a population map with around 80% of the population of australia living in souther Queensland, New South Wales and Victoria.