Territorial authorities is the formal term for the second tier of local government in New Zealand, below regional councils. There are 74 territorial authorities: 16 city councils, 57 district councils and the Chatham Islands Council. Five territorial authorities (Nelson City Council, Gisborne, Tasman and Marlborough District Councils and the Chatham Islands Council) also perform the functions of a regional council and thus are known as unitary authorities. Territorial authority districts are not subdivisions, as such, of regional council districts and some of them fall within more than one regional council area. Franklin District Council, for example, falls within both the Auckland and Waikato regional council areas.
For standard abbreviations of names, see ISO 3166-2:NZ.
Territorial Authorities
[*] With the exception of Hutt City Council and Chatham Islands Council, each territorial authority is directly named after the area it covers (with just the word "Council" added). Hutt City Council covers Lower Hutt City (Lower Hutt City (Name of City Council) Act 1991). The Chatham Islands Council covers a district known as Chatham Islands Territory, and has no encompassing region (Chatham Islands Council Act 1995).
Offshore islands
There are eight islands where the Minister of Local Government is the territorial authority, three of which have a 'significant population and/or permanent buildings and structures.'
Changes since 1989
Since the 1989 reorganisations conducted by the Local Government Commission, there have been few major reorganisations or status changes in local government. Incomplete list:
Reports on completed reorganisation attempts since 1999 are available on the Commission's site (link below).
External links and sources
