Refer to the current geographies boundaries table for a list of all current geographies and recent updates.
This dataset is the definitive version of the annually released Māori ward boundaries as at 1 January 2025, as defined by the territorial authorities and/or Local Government Commission and maintained by Stats NZ, clipped to the coastline. This clipped version has been created for cartographic purposes and so does not fully represent the official full extent boundaries. In 2025, there are 34 Māori wards (excluding Area Outside Māori Ward) within 29 territorial authorities.
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.
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 2025 classification.
Māori ward boundaries are defined at meshblock level.
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.
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”.
There is also a code of 99999 for those areas outside of territorial authority areas.
Clipped version
This clipped version has been created for cartographic purposes and so does not fully represent the official full extent boundaries.
High definition version
This high definition (HD) version is the most detailed geometry, suitable for use in GIS for geometric analysis operations and for the computation of areas, centroids and other metrics. The HD version is aligned to the LINZ cadastre.
Macrons
Names are provided with and without tohutō/macrons. The column name for those without macrons is suffixed ‘ascii’.
Digital data
Digital boundary data became freely available on 1 July 2007.
Further information
To download geographic classifications in table formats such as CSV please use Ariā
For more information please refer to the Statistical standard for geographic areas 2023.
Contact: geography@stats.govt.nz
