In 1874 the population of Auckland Province was 73,300. In 1911 it was 296,000 and it increased to 871,745 in 1956 and 997,000 in 1961, when it contained 41 per cent of the New Zealand population. Since 1911 Auckland has accounted for 52 per cent of all the New Zealand population increase, but not all parts of the provincial district have shared in recent growth. There has been rural depopulation in remoter hill-country areas–in the King Country, the Gisborne-East Cape district, and in rural Northland–all of these being areas where Maoris form a high proportion of the total population. Some of the older settled dairying counties of the Waikato have stable or even declining populations. The areas of most consistent and steady increase since the 1920s are the southern margins of the Waikato, the Bay of Plenty, and Rotorua-Taupo districts. The most remarkable development of recent decades, however, has been the growth of Auckland urban area to a population of nearly 450,000 in 1961. An interesting trend has been the movement of young Maoris from rural districts into this city. In 1936 the Auckland urban area had only 1,700 Maoris. In 1961 it had 20,000, or 12 per cent of the total Maori population of New Zealand.

by Murray McCaskill, M.A., PH.D., Reader in Geography, University of Canterbury.

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• The Maori King, Gorst, J. E. (1959)
• Historic Poverty Bay, Mackay, J. E. (1949)
• The Gael Fares Forth, McKenzie, N. R. (1942)
• Armed Settlers, Norris, H. C. M. (1956)
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• Pioneering the Pumice, Vaile, E. E. (1939)
• South Auckland, Wily, H. E. R. L. (1939).