This dataset is the definitive set of the annually released regional council boundaries for 2022 as defined by the regional councils and/or Local Government Commission and maintained by Stats NZ (the custodian), clipped to coastline. This clipped version has been created for map creation/cartographic purposes and so does not fully represent the official full extent boundaries.
The regional council is the top tier of local government in New Zealand. There are 16 regional councils in New Zealand (defined by Part 1 of Schedule 2 of the Local Government Act 2002). Eleven are governed by an elected regional council, while five are governed by territorial authorities (the second tier of local government), who also perform the functions of a regional council and are known as unitary authorities.
These unitary authorities are Auckland Council, Nelson City Council, and Gisborne, Tasman, and Marlborough District Councils. The Chatham Islands Council also performs some of the functions of a regional council but is not strictly a unitary authority. Unitary authorities act as regional councils for legislative purposes.
The seaward boundary of any coastal regional council is the twelve-mile New Zealand territorial limit. Regional councils are defined at meshblock level. Statistical area 1 and statistical area 2 geographies nest within regional council boundaries.
Names are provided with and without tohutō/macrons. The name field without macrons is suffixed ‘ascii’.
This generalised version has been simplified for rapid drawing and is designed for thematic or web mapping purposes.
Digital boundary data became freely available on 1 July 2007.
