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This dataset is the definitive version of the annually released community board boundaries as at 1 January 2025, as defined by the territorial authorities and/or Local Government Commission and maintained by Stats NZ. This classification includes community boards and local boards.
Community boards and local boards provide voting representation at a community level. They are defined under the Local Government Act 2002and Local Electoral Act 2001. Local boards were introduced as part of the new local government arrangements for Auckland in 2010. Community boards and local boards are defined at meshblock level and do not coincide with the statistical area 1 (SA1), statistical area 2 (SA2) or statistical area 3 (SA3) geographies.
Structure
The purpose of community boards is to administer the affairs of communities with a population of 1,500 or more people within rural, urban, or metropolitan areas of a territorial authority. A community board’s functions, powers, and duties are at the discretion of its parent territorial authority, so these may differ between community boards.
Community boards are a link between the council and the community. Community boards can be established at any time but may only be abolished as part of a council’s regular representation review carried out before the triennial local government elections; this is provided for in the Local Electoral Act 2001.
Local boards can be established within any unitary authority. Local boards share governance with a council’s governing body, and each has complementary responsibilities guaranteed by legislation. Local boards can propose bylaws and they gather community views on local and regional matters.
Community board and local board boundaries must coincide with meshblock boundaries under Local Government Act 2002 and Local Electoral Act 2001. Community boards, local boards and wards both sit within territorial authorities. There is not a one-to-one relationship and community boards and local boards may straddle wards.
Numbering
The Community Board classification is a flat classification. Community boards are numbered based on their corresponding territorial authority. Each community board has a unique five-digit number. The first three digits refer to the territorial authority that the community board lies within. The following two digits are sequential and represent the number of community boards within the territorial authority. For example, Tararua District (041) has two community boards numbered 04101 and 04102. The rest of the district is not represented by a community board and is coded ‘04199 Area outside community’.
The descriptor ‘Area outside community’ is applied to each individual territorial authority that has any areas outside community board or does not have community boards.
There is also a code of 99999 for those areas outside of territorial authority areas.
Maintenance
The Local Electoral Act 2001 provides for community boards to be reviewed before every second triennial local government election.
Local boards cannot be abolished or their boundaries changed except through a reorganisation process.
The Community Board classification is released annually on 1 January to coincide with the update of meshblocks, but there are not always changes from the previous classification.
High-definition version
This high definition (HD) version is the most detailed geometry, suitable for use in GIS for geometric analysis operations and for the computation of areas, centroids and other metrics. The HD version is aligned to the LINZ cadastre.
Macrons
Names are provided with and without tohutō/macrons. The column name for those without macrons is suffixed ‘ascii’.
Digital data
Digital boundary data became freely available on 1 July 2007
Further information
To download geographic classifications in table formats such as CSV please use Ariā
For more information please refer to the Statistical standard for geographic areas 2023.
Contact: geography@stats.govt.nz