2026 Urban Accessibility Indicator update

The 2026 Urban Accessibility indicator (IUA) is the first major update to the IUA classification. The drive time analysis used to create the original classification has been rerun and it aligns with the most recent statistical boundaries.

The most noticeable changes result from the Wānaka urban area being reclassified as a medium urban area in 2023, after its population estimate exceeded 10,000. The rural areas surrounding Wānaka are now considered to have greater accessibility to urban areas.

The original IUA classification was based on 2018 boundaries. Changes to the statistical boundaries released in 2023 included separating populated and non-populated areas and incorporating recent development. These changes will result in some change to the IUA classification. The address weighted centroids used in the analysis were generated in 2023 to align with the latest Census data and the 2023 update of the SA1 and Urban Rural boundaries. There have been minimal changes to these statistical areas since 2023.

Description

Refer to the current geographies boundaries table for a list of all current geographies and recent updates.

This dataset is the definitive version of the Urban Accessibility Indicator boundaries as at 1 January 2026, as defined by Stats NZ.

The Urban Accessibility Indicator (IUA) classification provides a consistent measure of urban accessibility in order to distinguish the degrees of rurality in New Zealand. IUA classifies the geographic accessibility of rural statistical area 1s (SA1s) and small urban areas according to their proximity, or degree of remoteness, to larger urban areas.

The IUA methodology uses drive time from an SA1 address weighted centroid to the outside boundary of the nearest major, large, and medium urban area (from the UR classification), to classify rural SA1s and small urban areas to one of five categories of accessibility or remoteness. Small urban areas and rural settlements are assigned to a single category based on the classification of the majority of their SA1s. The Open Source Routing Machine service using the OpenStreetMap road network was used to calculate the drive times.

Rural SA1s and small urban areas are classified to the following categories:

High urban accessibility:

• 0 to 15 minutes from major urban areas,

Medium urban accessibility:

• 15 to 25 minutes from major urban areas,

• 0 to 25 minutes from large urban areas,

• 0 to 15 minutes from medium urban areas,

Low urban accessibility:

• 25 to 60 minutes from major or large urban areas,

• 15 to 60 minutes from medium urban areas,

Remote:

• 60 to 120 minutes from major, large or medium urban areas,

Very remote:

• more than 120 minutes from major, large or medium urban areas.

The urban accessibility indicator (IUA) classifies urban, rural, and water areas by type. The high and medium urban accessibility categories are considered to be peri-urban.

The indicators, with their codes in brackets, are:

• urban areas – major urban area (111), large urban area (112), medium urban area (113),

• small urban and rural areas – high urban accessibility (221), medium urban accessibility (222), low urban accessibility (223), remote (224), very remote (225),

• water areas – inland water (331), inlet (332), oceanic (333).

For more information refer to Urban accessibility – methodology and classification or the Statistical standard for geographic areas 2023.

Lineage

These boundaries are derived from the meshblock pattern. Using spatial processing tools, the meshblocks are dissolved to form higher-level geographies.

The original vertices delineating the meshblock boundary pattern were digitised in 1991 from 1:5,000 scale urban maps and 1:50,000 scale rural maps. The magnitude of error of the original digital points would have been in the range of +/- 10 metres in urban areas and +/- 25 metres in rural areas. Where meshblock boundaries coincide with cadastral boundaries the magnitude of error will be within the range of 1–5 metres in urban areas and 1-100 metres in rural areas, this being the estimated magnitude of error in Landonline.

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.

Liability

While care has been taken to compile these boundary coordinates, Stats NZ gives no warranty that the data supplied is free from error. Stats NZ shall not be liable for any loss suffered through the use, directly or indirectly, of any information, product or service.

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