Thames is a town at the southwestern end of the Coromandel Peninsula in New Zealand's North Island. It is located on the Firth of Thames close to the mouth of the Waihou River. The town is the seat of the Thames-Coromandel District Council. A major employer is the Toyota New Zealand plant, which assembled CKD cars until 1998, and now refurbishes imported used cars. The town was initially built during a gold rush, and its population peaked at about 18,000 in 1868. For a while it was thought it would replace Auckland as the major town in the area.