May 29, 2024
Māori one in five in Census 2023
![Watermark](/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/logo-4.png)
![](https://waateanews.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/mntBLOCKSTORAGEhomemasternews_importersrcmaori-designs-1-gettyimages-11.jpg_1_Pub-11.jpg)
One in five New Zealanders now identify as Māori in what Stats NZ describes as a transformational shift.
The first results of Census 2023 show 19.6 percent or 978,246 of Aotearoa New Zealand’s population are Māori – an increase of 12.5 percent between 2018 and 2023.
The overall New Zealand population increased by 6.3 percent over the same period.
The median age of the Māori descent population is 27.2 years compared to a median age of 38.1 years for the total New Zealand population.
That means one in three younger New Zealanders – aged under 25 – are Māori.
In 2023, nearly a quarter or 23.3 percent of the Māori descent population were living in the Auckland, making up 13.8 percent of the Auckland population.
Waikato was the next most popular place for Māori to live, followed by the Bay of Plenty, while Gisborne had the highest proportion of Māori at 56 percent.