Regions of New Zealand

The region is referred to as a first level of New Zealand’s local government.

New Zealand has 16 regions, namely, Bay of Plenty, Auckland, Canterbury, Hawke’s Bay, Gisborne, Marlborough, Manawatu-Wanganui, Northland, Nelson, Southland, Otago, Tasman, Taranaki, Waikato, Wellington, and West Coast. Eleven regions of this country are governed by the regional council, while the territorial authorities govern the remaining five regions. The territorial authorities are defined as the second level of local government and also referred to as unitary authorities. In the next tier, we have 67 territorial authorities which is further divided into 53 district councils, 13 city councils and the Chatham Islands Council. Territorial authorities like Gisborne, Nelson City Council, Auckland Council, Tasman, and Marlborough District Councils, and the Chatham Islands Council execute the functionalities of a regional council. In Australasia, the Auckland Council is termed as the biggest council which initiated its operation on 1st of November, 2010. The primitive settlers of Europe divided New Zealand into provinces. But then, because of financial stress and the willingness to merge education, railways, land sales as well as other policies, the government was centralized, while the provinces were eliminated in 1876. In 1989 however, the government initiated the reorganization of the local government into the present day two-tier structure of territorial authorities and regional councils. With an approximate population of 1.37 million people, Auckland is termed as the most populous region in New Zealand. Besides, in terms of economy, this region is believed to be the most prosperous region.