Welcome to Environment Waikato’s web pages about the people, economy and natural environment of the Waikato region.
On this page:
The Waikato region
The Waikato region is the fourth largest region in the country. Covering most of the central North Island (approximately 25,000 km2, or 2.5 million hectares) it has 1,138 km of coastline.
The region stretches from the Bombay Hills and Port Waikato in the north, south to Mokau on the west coast, and across to the Coromandel Peninsula on the east coast.
In the south, the region extends to the slopes of Mt Ruapehu and the Kaimai Range. Check out the region’s boundaries and those of the twelve district council areas in the Waikato region.
Find out more about the natural environment of the Waikato region.
Our people
In 2006, 382,716 people lived in the Waikato region. This makes it the fourth largest regional population after the Auckland, Canterbury and Wellington regions.
The regional population grew by 7.0 per cent between 2001 and 2006, with the national population growing 7.8 per cent over the same period. The national population is projected to reach 5 million by the late 2020s. Find out more about the population of the 12 district council areas in our region.
In the Waikato region around 75 per cent of people live in urban areas. The median1 age of the population is slightly younger than the national average, at 35.5 years compared with 35.9 years. Maori make up 20.0 per cent of the regional population, compared with the national average of 14.0 per cent2.
Check out a brief history of the Waikato region.
Our economy
The Waikato region’s natural environment supports its people, culture and economy. But we demand increasingly more from our natural environment. More people and increasing economic activity mean we develop and use more natural resources. Find out more about the economy of the Waikato region.
We must learn to live within the limits of our environment if we want to keep it in its current condition, or improve it. Thinking about people and the economy as part of the natural system, and how natural systems link together will help us to maintain a healthy economy and a healthy natural environment. This integrated view of people and the environment is termed the ecosystem approach and is not unlike a Maori perspective of the region’s resources and their management issues.
Caring for the Waikato region
In the past, we tended to use nature’s resources to suit our short-term needs. The changes we made in the past to our natural environment have given us our current lifestyle. There was a need to introduce plants and animals to sustain human life, and to eventually build the thriving economy we have today. The issue today is striking the right balance between protecting the environment and using its resources.
Now, as we understand more about natural processes and how people affect them, we must take our environment into account when making economic decisions. We have to recognise that everything we do – building towns, turning forests into farms, using cars, creating beach resorts – - is 'borrowing' from our environment.
Our well being depends on a healthy environment – clean water, clean air, healthy soil and a variety of plants and animals. To keep our environment healthy, we may have to change the way we do things in the future.
What we do
Find out about the work that Environment Waikato does to manage the region’s environment. Check out our policies and plans for managing the environment.
Check out our region's constituency boundaries and find out who our regional councillors are.
Footnotes
- The median age is where half the population is younger and half older than this age.
- Statistics New Zealand, 2006.