Since the First World War Marlborough has experienced the steady but unspectacular progress of a mature farming district and there has been little change in the outlines of the settlement pattern. The rural population has declined, except in the lower Wairau Valley, and the main trend has been the growth of Blenheim as the regional centre from 3,770 people in 1911 to 12,000 in 1961. The population of the provincial district was 2,300 in 1861, 6,145 in 1874, 16,000 in 1911, 25,700 in 1956, and 27,740 in 1961. Between 1911 and 1951 there was consistent outwards migration of population from Marlborough, but since 1951 there has been a slight gain by migration from other parts of New Zealand. Sheep numbers have remained stable since 1911 although fleece weights and the number of lambs have increased, as have beef and dairy cattle numbers. The only significant industrial development of recent years has been the Lake Grassmere salt works which utilises the high sunshine and low rainfall of the district for evaporating sea water to obtain industrial salt.

Those social characteristics of the population which can be measured reveal little that is distinctive to Marlborough. The patterns of religious adherence, age structures and birthplaces of immigrant settlers have shown little divergence from the New Zealand average during the past hundred years.

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

• Old Marlborough, Buick, T. Lindsay (1900)
• Marlborough—A Provincial History, ed. McIntosh, A. D. (1940).