New Zealand next year. You gotta be there!

The  Rugby World Cup is a major sporting event, surpassed in size only by the FIFA World Cup and the Summer Olympics. The 2007 tournament in France had a cumulative world television audience of 4.2 billion people for the 48 matches. The competition is held every four years and the 2015 Rugby World Cup will be hosted by England.

Thirteen towns and cities in different New Zealand regions will host next year's Rugby World Cup. From Whangarei at the top of the North Island to Invercargill at the bottom of the South Island, these 13 places represent the country's love affair with a game that is said to have started in 1823 at Rugby School in England, when William Webb Ellis caught the ball while playing soccer and ran away with it.