These combined components of change maps indicate the manner in which the individual components of change (natural increase/decrease and the direction of net migration) combine to result in overall growth or decline. For example, often overlooked, positive natural increase regularly offsets accompanying net migration loss to deliver overall growth, while natural increase can be positive but insufficient to offset accompanying net migration loss.

The data to 2018 are ‘observed’ patterns based on Statistics New Zealand’s Estimated Resident Population counts, while projections from 2013 are based on Statistics New Zealand's 2013-base Update, medium variant. For the 2013-2018 period, both projected and observed data are given, and show the significant impact of historically high net international migration over the period (not anticipated in the projections). Between 2013 and 2018, 87 per cent of territorial authority areas experienced growth from both natural increase and net migration gain, whereas between 2006 and 2013 that had been the case for only 46 per cent.

With the exception of the observed data for 2013-2018, all other data were drawn from the Royal Society Marsden project The ebbing of the human tide. What will it mean for the people? (project also known as Tai timu tangata. Taihoa e?) and converted for visualisation by the CaDDANZ Population Atlas research team. See for additional detail and methodological notes.