Gisborne Tairāwhiti has the highest proportion of residents of Māori descent in all of Aotearoa New Zealand, according to data from the 2023 Census.
Fifty-six per cent of the Gisborne population are of Māori whakapapa, and 70.4 per cent of those under 25 in the region are Māori.
This was announced on Wednesday morning by iwi data entity Te Kahu Rarauranga and Stats NZ, which also released a new platform, Te Whata, for information about Māori from the 2023 Census.
The other regions with a high Māori proportion are Northland (39.9 per cent) and Bay of Plenty (32.9 per cent).
Te Kāhui Raraunga pou arahi/aho tapu Kirikowhai Mikaere said the statistics were awesome for Māori.
“Māori have a very young age structure, with one in three under 25 being Māori across the country,” Mikaere said.
She acknowledged Toitū Tairāwhiti, a collective made up of Te Rūnanga o Tūranganui-a-Kiwa and Te Rūnanganui o Ngāti Porou, who led the Census collection last year in Gisborne.
“What we saw compared to 2018 is that those iwi-led collection areas exceeded the response to the previous Census and it just really reflects the trust the iwi have in their communities and how well they know their communities to get that type of engagement and participation.
“I don’t doubt that has attributed to that result for us.”
The other reason for the increase is because the Māori population is younger and generally have their children at a younger age.
“We also have a higher fertility rate. We have what they call a built-in momentum to grow.”
The usually resident population was 51,135 in 2023, up 7.6 per cent from 2018.
Gisborne ethnicity proportions in 2023:
● 56.5 per cent were European
● 54.8 per cent were Māori
● 5.6 per cent were Pacifica
● 3.8 per cent were Asian
● 0.7 per cent were Middle Eastern/Latin American/African (MELAA)
● 0.9 per cent were ‘Other ethnicity’
Ethnic group is a self-determined affiliation, with people identifying as belonging to one or more ethnicities.
Māori counts are measured in two ways in the Census. Māori descent is based on whakapapa, the 56 percent figure for Tairāwhiti, while ethnicity is self-determined cultural affiliation.
Not all people with Māori descent identified Māori as their primary ethnic background.
The median age of people living in Gisborne in 2023 was 36.7 years, compared to 37 years in 2018.
There were 19,509 dwellings counted in the Census, an increase of 4.4 per cent since 2018.
Two main data releases will follow in late September and November, with a series of topic releases to be published from November to August 2025.
1 comment
The headline says Maori make up 56 percent of the Gisborne population
(I presume that means district not city).
Yet the figures quoted further down say: Gisborne ethnicity proportions in 2023:
● 56.5 per cent were European ● 54.8 per cent were Māori. Hmmm.
Why do the percentages add up to more than a 100? Double-counting apparently.
Then there is a confusing explanation for the differences between ethnicity and whakapapa.
The figures as presented seem to suggest that some Maori have claimed whakapapa yet have chosen not to identify as of Maori ethnicity.
Perhaps the same, or the reverse, is the case with those supposed to be European (or some other grouping)? - but this the data does not reveal!
Not that it matters a fig, but I was born in England, therefore I am English; my genealogical heritage embraces a number of contributing ancestral origins- yet I identify as a New Zealander having lived here most of my life. :-)
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