Regional Council Areas

There are 16 Regional Council areas, each comprised of one or more Territorial Authority Areas and accounting for different numbers of people. The council with the largest number of Territorial Authority Areas (10) is Waikato, while the council serving the largest population is Auckland. Regional Councils have both administrative and legal status.

All of these spatial geographic areas are aggregations of Mesh Blocks, which are the smallest geographic unit for which Statistics New Zealand collects statistical data. Mesh blocks vary in size, from part of a city block to large areas of rural land. Each mesh block borders on another to cover all of New Zealand, extending out to the 200-mile economic zone (approximately 320 kilometers). At the time of the 2013 Census, there were 46,637 mesh blocks in New Zealand.