People of New Zealand

Ethnic groups

Contemporary New Zealand has a majority of people of European origin, a significant minority of Māori, and smaller numbers of people from Pacific islands and Asia. In the early 21st century, Asians were the fastest-growing demographic group.

New Zealand was one of the last sizable land areas suitable for habitation to be populated by human beings. The first settlers were Polynesians who traveled from somewhere in eastern Polynesia, possibly from what is now French Polynesia. They remained isolated in New Zealand until the arrival of European explorers, the first of whom was the Dutch navigator Abel Janszoon Tasman in 1642. Demographers estimate that, by the time British naval captain James Cook visited the country in 1769, the Māori population was not much greater than 100,000. They had no name for themselves but eventually adopted the name Māori (meaning “normal”) to distinguish themselves from the Europeans, who, after Cook’s voyage, began to arrive with greater frequency.

The Europeans brought with them an array of diseases to which the Māori had no resistance, and the Māori population declined rapidly. Their reduction in numbers was exacerbated by widespread intertribal warfare (once the Māori had acquired firearms) and by warfare with Europeans. By 1896 only about 42,000 Māori—a small fraction of New Zealand’s total population at the time—remained. Early in the 20th century, however, their numbers began to increase as they acquired resistance to such diseases as measles and influenza and as their birth rate subsequently recovered. By the early 21st century, Māori constituted about one-sixth of New Zealand’s population, and that proportion was expected to increase.

Europeans began to settle in New Zealand in the 1820s. They arrived in increasing numbers after the country was annexed by Great Britain following the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi in 1840. By the late 1850s settlers outnumbered Māori, and in 1900 there were some 772,000 Europeans, most of whom were New Zealand-born. Although the overwhelming majority of immigrants were of British extraction, other Europeans came as well, notably from Scandinavia, Germany, Greece, Italy, and the Balkans. Groups of central Europeans came between World Wars I and II, and a large body of Dutch immigrants arrived after World War II. Since the 1950s there has been a growing community of Pacific island peoples from Samoa (formerly Western Samoa), the Cook Islands, Niue, and Tokelau. Although Chinese and Indian immigrants have long settled in New Zealand, since the 1990s there has been a large growth in migration from Asia.

Languages

New Zealand is predominantly an English-speaking country, though English, Māori, and New Zealand Sign Language are official languages. Virtually all Māori speak English, and about one-fourth of them also speak Māori. The Māori language (te reo Māori) is taught at a number of schools. Other non-English languages spoken by significant numbers of people are Samoan, Hindi, and Mandarin Chinese.

Religion

New Zealand is nominally Christian, with Anglican, Roman Catholic, and Presbyterian denominations being the largest. Other Protestant sects and Māori adaptations of Christianity (the Rātana and Ringatū churches) constitute the remainder of the Christian population.

About one-third of the population does not claim any religious affiliation. Hinduism, Buddhism, and Sikhism have small but growing numbers of adherents. There is no established (official) religion, but Anglican cathedrals are generally used for state occasions.

Settlement patterns

The majority of New Zealanders live in the North Island. The New Zealand countryside is thinly populated, but there are many small towns with populations of up to 10,000 and a number of provincial cities of more than 20,000. Some of the smallest towns and villages have become deserted as people moved to the bigger towns and cities.

The main urban areas are Auckland, in the north of the North Island, the main industrial complex and commercial centre; Hamilton, the centre of the Waikato farming region; Wellington, centrally located at the southern tip of the North Island and the political capital; Christchurch, in the middle of the South Island and the second largest industrial area; and finally, still farther south, Dunedin.

Although New Zealand is notable for the strength of its rural sector, the great majority of people live in cities. There is also a marked difference in the degree of population growth of the two main islands—the North having about three-fourths of the total population, in sharp contrast to the earlier years of systematic settlement. As in the past, the great majority of Māori live in the North Island. After World War II, however, most Māori became urban dwellers, as did migrants from the Pacific islands.

Demographic trends

Life expectancy in New Zealand is generally high, although it is lower for Māori than for non-Māori. The death rate is below the world average. Annual population growth fluctuates but is generally low, comparable to that of other industrialized Western countries. The natural rate of increase tends to be highest among Māori and people of Pacific island heritage.

Immigration is a major contributor to overall population growth in New Zealand, and that has led to frequent debates about limiting immigration. Although in the past most immigrants came from Great Britain and the Netherlands, they have been surpassed by people from the Pacific islands and Asia. Australia is the preferred destination of emigrants. Both immigration and emigration are sensitive to the rate of growth of the New Zealand economy and its employment opportunities as well as to conditions overseas.