Māori Ward 2023 (generalised)

This dataset is the definitive version of the annually released Māori ward boundaries as at 1 January 2023 as defined by the territorial authorities and/or Local Government Commission, and maintained by Stats NZ (the custodian). In 2023, there are 34 Māori wards (excluding Area Outside Māori Ward) within 29 territorial authorities.

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The Local Electoral Act 2001 provides that Māori wards may be established in territorial authorities. If a territorial authority decides to have Māori wards, the wards within the council are known as general wards and Māori wards.

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The first Māori ward was established by representation review in 2019 and first appeared in the 2020 geographic boundaries released by Stats NZ. Changes to government legislation that allowed councils to decide on whether to include Māori wards in their arrangements resulted in 33 new Māori wards being added to the 2023 classification.

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Māori ward boundaries are defined at meshblock level.

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Numbering

Māori wards are numbered based on their corresponding territorial authority. Each Māori ward has a unique five-digit code. The first three digits represent the territorial authority that the Māori ward lies within. The following two digits are sequential and represent the number of Māori wards within a territorial authority.

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Territorial authorities that do not have Māori wards use “99” at the end of the Māori ward code, and the descriptor “Area Outside Māori Ward”.

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There is also a code of 99999 for those areas outside of territorial authority areas.

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Generalised version

This generalised version has been simplified for rapid drawing and is designed for thematic or web mapping purposes.

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Macrons

Names are provided with and without tohutō/macrons. The column name for those without macrons is suffixed ‘ascii’.

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Digital data

Digital boundary data became freely available on 1 July 2007.

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To download geographic classifications in table formats such as CSV please use Ariā