Information in this profile is based on the 2001 Census of Population and Dwellings. For the purposes of this report, the Māori population includes all people who said in the census they were of Māori descent.
The Ngāti Tūwharetoa population includes all Māori who gave Ngāti Tūwharetoa as their iwi, or as one of their iwi.
The iwi takiwā (tribal region) for Ngāti Tūwharetoa consists of the Taupo and Rangitikei Districts.1
In 2001, 29,298 people, or 5 percent of the Māori population, belonged to Ngāti Tūwharetoa. This was 300 more than at the 1996 Census – a 1 percent increase.
Sixty-five percent of Ngāti Tūwharetoa iwi members also affiliated with another iwi group or groups.
While Ngāti Tūwharetoa iwi members comprised 5 percent of the total Māori population, within their iwi takiwā they made up 35 percent of the Māori population.
Eighty-four percent of Ngāti Tūwharetoa lived outside the iwi takiwā in 2001, compared with 83 percent in 1996.
Twenty-three percent of Ngāti Tūwharetoa lived in the Waikato region, 16 percent in the Auckland region, and a further 15 percent each in the Manawatu-Wanganui and Bay of Plenty regions.
Most Ngāti Tūwharetoa (86 percent) lived in urban areas (towns or cities of 1,000 people or more), with two out of three of these urban dwellers living in areas with populations of 30,000 or more.
Ngāti Tūwharetoa aged 65 and over were the most likely (20 percent) to live in rural areas, while younger people aged 15–34 were the least likely (13 percent) to do so, as shown in figure 1.
Demographic characteristics of Ngāti Tūwharetoa in 2001 had not changed significantly from the 1996 Census.
Ngāti Tūwharetoa are concentrated in the younger age groups, as shown in figure 2. At the 2001 Census, 40 percent of Ngāti Tūwharetoa were children under 15, while only 3 percent were aged 65 and older. There had been little change in the age distribution of the population since 1996.
The median age (half the population is older, and half younger, than this age) of the Ngāti Tūwharetoa population in 2001 was 19.8 years, 2.5 years less than the median age of the total Māori population (22.3 years).
The 2001 Census revealed that more than half (53 percent) of Ngāti Tūwharetoa iwi members were female.
A higher proportion of Ngāti Tūwharetoa living inside the iwi takiwā were in the 55 and over age group than those living outside the iwi takiwā
(10 percent compared with 6 percent).
Movement of Ngāti Tūwharetoa into and out of the iwi takiwā resulted in a net loss of 282 people from the iwi takiwā between the 1996 and 2001 Censuses.
Half of this net loss was from the 15–24 year group.
At the 2001 Census, 390 Ngāti Tūwharetoa said they had been living overseas in 1996. Only 14 percent of these people were living inside the iwi takiwā in 2001. There was no information on the number of iwi members living overseas in 20011.
