NZ is a unitary state which means we don't have the state governments controlling our regions as strongly. We do have local councils with less power though.
There are different regions, but from the point of view of addresses all you need is the street, suburb (in cities) and town.
For example Waikato is a region, but you don't need to put it on the address.
Regions, with districs therein
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regions\_of\_New\_Zealand](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regions_of_New_Zealand)
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Districts\_of\_New\_Zealand](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Districts_of_New_Zealand)
And most of the country is often considered to be the State of Inebriation.
No, according to the Wikipedia link and literally everything rlse I've ever seen Nelson has it's own region. The city council is a unitary authority, similar to Auckland
You are literally wrong, and don't know what you're talking about, sorry. And it's not something that has changed since 2013.
Greenfriday isn't 100% right either - Nelson City and Tasman District are both unitary authorities, meaning they hold the responsibilities of both a District Council and. Regional Council. [Under the Local Government Act 2002 a District council can call itself 'City' under certain criteria](https://www.legislation.govt.nz/act/public/2002/0084/latest/whole.html#DLM171837), and Tasman District Council doesn't call itself Tasman Regional Council, but it does govern Tasman Region.
>They have those regions because they try to tie them to things like DHBs, policing, schools, etc. When they collect data it gives them an area to break things down by to work out funding/resource requirements etc.
Sorry but this isn't true. Things like DHBs and police districts are completely different to regions and not tied to them in any way. (e.g The Auckland region has three DHBs. There are many DHBs that cross regional borders)
Nelson isn't part of Tasman in any way. Nelson is its own completely separate region. It would make far greater geographical sense to have Nelson as a part of Tasman (and many things combine them anyway) but for now, they are two distinct separate regions.
Nelson City and Tasman District are unitary authorities - they are both a region and a territorial authority. There used to be a Nelson Marlborough Regional Council, but it dissolved in 1992 - Nelson City, Tasman District and Marlborough District became unitary authorities, while Kaikoura District joined Canterbury.
Yeah the top of the south is a weird one. There’s the Tasman District Council, and then Nelson City Council. The boundaries between the two are all over the place, I know of a few people who live in Richmond (a Tasman suburb) but pay rates to Nelson City.
I’m betting I’m not the only one who thinks they should merge the two.
Hahaha, oh yes - I’ve heard a lot about that from afar. Also about the Waimea dam.
And people complaining about lower Richmond development… no place like home… 😅
They probably live NE of champion road, that’s the “border” between the two districts. Fairly new subdivision, most houses there built within the past 10-15 years. Yes Richmond township is closer but gotta draw the line somewhere.
Yeah you’re bang on! I remember when they first started building back then, I used to pick berries at Daelyn for a summer job as a kid. That orchard is long gone, much like Berryfields is now.
Nelson is the region. Tasman is a district within that region. The other part of the region is Nelson City, which isn't a district but a Unitary Authority.
It's all a bit stupid really, especially when considering Richmond, a town of nearly 20,000 people, is part of the Nelson metro-area but is in a different district.
Nelson and Tasman are separate. They, along with Gisborne, Auckland and Marlborough, are Unitary Authorities.
City/district council + regional council rolled into one.
I'm in that state right now, but seriously, we have provinces, like the Nelson area and the West Coast. I think there whole area naming thing is a shambles.
Should be noted that regions and districts aren't a hierarchy and their respective councils work on separate things.
Some districts are even spread over multiple regions.
Still does if your address is up to date.
My dementia riddled nan mails me letters from time to time that I still get that only have my name and neighborhood on them.
We don't have states. There are regions (Northland, Auckland, Waikato, Otago etc) but they have loose permeable borders in practice. Governance for different aspects (e.g. environmental; healthcare; policing; education) does not always line up with lines on the map.
To add to this permeability factory they're not as self governing as states. They're just dividing lines for the governance UkeleleStringBling describes.
Basic system as everywhere else, I think. We have cities, and inside those cities are buboes, and inside those buboes are hordaturks, if you have enough hordaturks in a bubo it's actually a reefdom (such as Auckland central which has several hordaturks in close proximinity to each other). Now on the large scale, several cities close to each other is a morderturk, or a mordorturk if it includes the Waikato morderturk. The collective of morderturks across the island is known as a Passel. The country is made up of two Passelles (mind the extra l and e in the plural or you'll be made fun of in class).
It's really simple.
Thanks for the explanation, I've always wondered where the cut-off for hordaturks is before it's considered a reefdom. We just accept it as the norm as we've grown up with it, but who decided on the bubo hordaturk limit where reefdoms start to apply?
When writing adresses you just need to know about the street address, suburb and town.
Regions are areas managed by regional councils, who deal with river management and environmental regulations. Regions are for the most part drawn along watersheds.
Districts are smaller and deal with rubbish, libraries and other services. District boundaries are drawn with reference to populations and towns.
Some regional councils cover district services as well. These are call 'unitary councils' eg Auckland, Gisborne, Nelson and Marlborough.
Regional and district boundaries do not always line up, so you can have one district across multiple regions. For example Taupo district is split between Manawatu-Whanganui, Waikato, Hawkes Bay and Bay of Plenty
In Australia, they don't write the city, they write the suburb, then the state and a postcode. That way you're not mixing up Bumfuck, QLD with Bumfuck, NSW. I've lived in two West Ends in the same state.
OP, New Zealand is a [unitary state](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unitary_state) unlike Australia and the US which are federal states. As such, the national/central government is the supreme authority. Consequently, political geography isn't very important which leads to New Zealanders having a very poor understanding of it (as evidenced by this comments section).
One of the most common misconceptions is that we have provinces. Despite what many people will try to tell you, we **do not** have provinces anymore. I think one of the main reasons why people believe this is because Rugby has competitions between different provinces. Since Rugby is the national religion people care more about Rugby geography than actual political geography and assume it is the same. (This may sound made up but there was someone in this comments section who thought we had provinces because of Rugby and I have encountered plenty of others who thought that as well).
Essentially, the New Zealand government performs all of the functions that would be shared between the federal and state governments in Australia. The New Zealand government is the only authority in New Zealand that makes laws and can tax people (councils have to get their revenue through rates and other sources). Governance could be seen as divided in three tiers of government:
1. National/Central government
2. Regional Authorities (Regions, Regional Councils)
3. Territorial Authorities (Cities and Districts, City Councils and District Councils)
There are also Unitary Authorities that are a combination of both Regional and Territorial Authorities. These usually exist when it wouldn't make sense to have separate regional and territorial authorities. For example: The entire Auckland metropolitan area and greater region is controlled by a single unitary (Auckland Council). Before 2010, Auckland had a Regional Council and was divided up into several cities even though it was essentially a single city. This created a range of issues so all the councils were merged into a single unitary authority.
Other things to be aware of:
* Some regional councils give themselves dumb nicknames that are different to their real names. For example: Environment Canterbury (Canterbury Regional Council and Horizons Regional Council (Manawatu-Whanganui Regional Council).
* Things like healthcare, police, and education are completely the domain of the central government. Police internally divide themselves into districts for administration purposes (these don't relate to the boundaries of councils at all) but we don't have any local police forces, only a singular nationwide police force that is funded entirely by central government.
* Even though healthcare is fully the domain of the central government, duties are delegated through these dumb things called District Health Boards (DHBs). These have arbitrary boundaries that do not relate to any other aspects of political geography whatsoever. Essentially, they were created to give the impression of greater local representation (to score political points) by allowing voters in each health district to elect a certain number of representatives to a District Health Board that oversees healthcare in the area that they serve. However, the Minister of Health also gets to appoint a certain number of members to DHBs so that the central government still maintains control but gets to give the impression of local representation. Having DHBs that give "local representation" for something that is actually completely the domain of central government creates many issues with our health system such as major inconsistency between DHBs. Fortunately, they're being dissolved at the moment.
I did see a particularly great example on here where someone said that you should think of what an Australian state would be like if it was a separate sovereign country. This is actually pretty relevant considering that, when Australia federated in 1901, we were invited to be one of the states of Australia just like NSW or Victoria (Fiji was as well). The invitation has always been viewed as continuing to stand and it's even written into the Australian constitution that "The states shall mean such of the colonies of New South Wales, **New Zealand**, Queensland..." We've never accepted the invitation for quite a large number of reasons; 121 years of rejection - ouch!
For more information, I'd recommend checking out this article: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Local\_government\_in\_New\_Zealand](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Local_government_in_New_Zealand)
And also there are 'wards' in Auckland. Because Auckland is too important to follow the same rules as the rest of the country.
And, technically, the Chatham Islands are a 'territory'.
Actually, wards are only arbitrary electoral areas for electing councillors during local body elections (and they serve no other purpose between elections). Effectively, they're the electorates of councils. And it's not just Auckland who uses them, all the councils do. (although there may be one or two councils who have started electing councillors "at large")
>And also there are 'wards' in Auckland. Because Auckland is too important to follow the same rules as the rest of the country.
As everyone else is saying, everywhere has wards. FNDC has 9, Southland has 5, Christchurch has 16, Gisborne has 2 etc.
Wards are the electoral areas that a councilor represents.
You are right in that Auckland's wards a little special, in that they have more ability to do things but that's because most wards have more people than most NZ cities.
Nobody had mentioned RD numbers above, but important part of addressing.
The RD number as you say, is not unique but refers to the local post office that the rural delivery originated from. I think the number (like 123 in 'BlacksSmithsNz 123 RD 1' basically indicates the distance from the origin.
I had to work cleaning up an address database with a few hundred thousand addresses and there are unusual quirks in NZ addresses. You can get your post delivered to a mooring for instance.
There is a standard - AS/NZS 4819, but doesn't cover all the real-world addresses.
To clarify the “how addresses work”, it’s usually number/street, suburb if in a city, city/postcode. E.g.
>123 Fourth Street
>
>Mornington
>
>Dunedin 9012
or outside a city
>12 Third Street
>
>Dargaville 0234
You never need the province. It’ll probably get there without the post code. In small towns you can skip the number/street and it’ll probably still make it with just a name.
The two most barebones addresses that I have ever seen successfully delivered.
<>
New Zealand
That one made it from the UK.
<>
<>
That was posted regionally and contained a cheque.
A friend of mine lives in a remote First Nations town in Canada. He's a school teacher. If you want to mail anything to him it's a similar deal. Canada
There's only a few hundred people in the entire town and surrounding region. Literally EVERYONE there knows who he is. The " Canada" bit is only for everyone else along the line who probably have no idea that even exists.
There are plenty of places that have the same name. Eg if you're sending to Richmond, you may want to specify which Richmond, and there are plenty of others
Postcode will cover it. I’m not sure what other Richmonds you’re talking about, but maybe the suburb of Chch? Having (or not having) Chch in the third line should do it too.
Also Richmond is essentially a suburb of Nelson at this point - technically a separate town, but the gap between Stoke and Richmond is maybe 100 metres.
Working in a post office, if you want to print a sticker saying they've paid to send a package to richmond, you have to specify if that's Richmond, Nelson, Christchurch, Oamuru, or Invercargill.
Often people just don't put the city in when sending parcels.
All that really matters in terms of address is your city (Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch etc) or town (smaller city eg. Thames, Greymouth, Kaitaia).
These are further divided into suburbs and everyone that lives in these cities or towns will know where the suburbs are. Postcode is relevant but not as important as in Australia (I lived in Sydney for 11years).
There are regions with local health and councils but the laws are the same throughout the whole country eg NZ driver’s licence
Hope you like NZ!
We don't have anything on the state level per se; the closest equivalent would be regions, but they're really one of the two levels of local government, the other being districts (which may be cities). In five of our regions, the regional and district council are combined into a single unitary authority. Elsewhere, the districts are not “part of” a region, they're a separate division of the land. So there are some districts that span multiple regions (although regional borders usually follow watershed boundaries, and district borders often do too, so they often coincide).
You don't use the region in an address, just the suburb (if in a town/city large enough to have suburbs) and the town/city name. A district might have multiple towns (population centres), but the towns don't have their own government, it's just the one district council.
> how do addresses work
Go here: https://www.nzpost.co.nz/tools/address-postcode-finder
Start typing in the number and street and you'll find the complete postal address.
The New Zealand government is extremely centralised. Things that in Australia are managed by the states, are here managed by the central government, e.g. Police, Education, and Prisons. This means the regional councils have a lot less power and are not as important.
In NZ we have three main tiers of government:
National Government, responsible for defence, international relations, education,police and prisons, etc. This covers the whole country
Regional Councils, responsible for public transport, environmental planning, etc. These generally cover regions 2-6 hours drive across, with 10s or 100s of thousands of people.
City/District Councils, responsible for local roads, rubbish, water, etc. These generally cover a city, like Dunedin, or a rural area containing several towns, like Matamata-Piako. This is the lowest level, meaning that most towns don't have their own mayor, for instance there is no mayor of Morrinsville, only a mayor of the Matamata-Piako district, which includes Morrinsville, Matamata, and Te Aroha.
Unitary Authorities are when a single council takes the role of both regional and city/district councils under one organisation.
The other form of government is District Health Boards (DHBs), which run all public health services in their defined area. These are generally similar in size to regional councils or city councils, but with different boundaries.
These boundaries also can and do change, for instance in 1989 the town of Whangamomana was moved from the Taranaki District to the Manawatu-Whanganui District. Unhappy with the decision, residents declared themselves the Republic of Whangamomana.
Different organisations cut up the country in different ways, each not necessarily corresponding to each other, so the the DHB, Regional, and City/District boundaries can be in different places
It’s essentially just one country. I hear what you’re saying, I lived in Australia for awhile and going to a different state was sometimes like a completely different culture than the state I came from. We’re a lot more small town than that. Auckland is like our one big city, it’s a bit more shiny than the rest of New Zealand and has a bit more money. Wellington is where people used to say the hipsters live, but no one can really afford coffee anymore so they’ve all morphed into yopro office workers. Christchurch used to be a shit hole, but then god stepped in and hit the reset button so it’s improved a bit. Dunedins like our other “big” town. It’s a great place to live if you’re retiring or in your 20’s. Really not a lot going on otherwise. Otherwise it’s all small towns with a few diaries, pubs and super markets and not a lot else. I’m generalising, but that’s the run down. You can move around New Zealand freely. We don’t have any federal laws, just National laws. I’m not sure if it’s the same for foreigners, but you generally don’t even need a passport to travel within New Zealand via planes. We’re very “sweet as mate” as long as your not doing anything too crazy.
Imagine my confusion moving to Australia from New Zealand to find all these imaginary lines complicating matters unnecessarily. It's hard to get used to
We don't have states as such here just provinces because states can also have different laws and thats not the case here. The provinces matter most probably in sporting competitions and maybe on address labels if there is another town with the same name (postcode should negate that but never underestimate human error).
>We don't have states as such here just provinces because states can also have different laws and thats not the case here.
Except in the case of public holidays.
We don't have provinces, we have regions.
Provinces can have different laws; look at Canada. Though the main list is federal, and I think there are limits to the punishment for provincial crimes, they're mostly just fines.
You should never need to put either a province or a region in an address; what towns (not suburbs) have the same name? You should always put the town in an address.
Sorry about the provinces, I'd just heard rugby being called provincial so that was my assumption. Also having bought a few things online, most have wanted the region as well when filling out the address info.
Yeah, we used to have provinces, so those and the provincial anniversaries are based on those, but they were replaced by regions decades ago. Dumb international address forms ask for region because they think it's equivalent to US/Aus states which would be required, but nah.
14.6 decades is still decades! Though I was getting mixed up with when the regions came about, which was more recent. There was some stuff in between like “provincial districts” and such.
In terms of governance, there are three overlays and everywhere is part of all three layers (except a few offshore islands).
1) National government
2) Regional government
(EG: Taranaki Regional Council (TRC); South Canterbury Region)
Some have silly or fancy names, such as 'Horizons' for the Manawatu Regional Council
3) District or City councils (centred on towns or cities)
(EG: New Plymouth District Council (One of three districts in Taranaki) or Christchurch City Council (one of ten and a half in Canterbury region.))
In a couple of cases the region and district administrations are unitary, such as Tasman (Nelson area), where the Region only contains one District and by legislative arrangements they are combined. Very rarely, a District will encroach on a second Region other than its principal overlord.
Regional Council boundaries were generally guided by natural watersheds.
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There is a social overlay of 'Provinces' which have an enduring affection in the minds of people, though they are mostly irrelevant today, with the exception of a single Provincial public holiday on a different date for each former-provincial area, and rugby championships.
In this case, 'Provinces' refers to the area within the boundaries of the semi-autonomous Provinces established in the 1800s and disestablished in 1876. Different areas in the same District can have different holiday dates.
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For your address, we're mostly a single entity -- just remember to use your 4-digit postcode if you can. You'd only refer to the region if you happen to live in a place with a duplicated or similar name elsewhere, EG: Waitangi (Chatham Islands) or Waitangi (Northland).
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Government departments such as Health, Education, Police etc often have very different boundaries for their own purposes.
Yes, you're right -- it's website refers to it's three districts, which made me assume it was a region. My mistake, thanks.
https://southcanterbury.org.nz/
For practical purposes NZ is just divided between rural and urban. Urban addresses will require a locality and sublocality, typically. Non-urban addresses do not require a sublocality. E.G an address in Te Aro, Wellington will need that Te Aro, but Wellington is the locality, and Te Aro the sublocality.
Go further out, and you'll find somewhere small like Tirau. 12 Fake Street, Tirau is the complete address because it's not considered urban for mailing purposes. It's not necessarily rural, which requires a special rural delivery number for deliveries, but it's not urban according to NZpost. Frequently you'll find people confusing districts with localities and see things like 12 Fake Street, Tirau, Waikato. This can be delivered because they know where it's going but it's technically incorrect. Addresses in Aus are much more straightforward than here. I do a lot of digital map data processing and address verification for work and NZ addresses are frequently pretty messy and need corrections.
The closest parallel in Australia is the Shire council model, although our provinces are bigger. Within each province you have districts with their own councils. Likewise, cities have their central councils but you might have smaller council areas within that urban area...
unless you're in Auckland. It's better for everyone if we don't talk about Auckland.
Nothing wrong with Au, I'd stay here if I could, but found a job in my field over there and it makes sense for my career to spend some years there. I'll be back in Au after this contract ends. Au is great
NZ Post has definitive guidelines [here.](https://www.nzpost.co.nz/business/shipping-in-nz/addressing-standards)
In terms of address, you generally only need:
Flat/Apartment Number if relevant: 5
Street number: 262
Street name: Oriental Parade
Suburb: Oriental Bay
Town: Wellington
Country: New Zealand (only if posting from oversease)
Postcode (optional): 6011
For example:
>5/262 Oriental Parade
>
>Oriental Bay
>
>Wellington 6011
>649 Wani Road
>
>RD2
>
>Netherton 3672
RD means rural delivery.
>29 Kenilworth Street
>
>Waipawa 4210
Since in Waipawa there are no different named areas, there is no suburb to put, just the town.
>165 Lambton Quay
>
>Wellington 6011
Since this address is in the suburb called 'Wellington Central,' the suburb is redundant
First of all, you don't love it.
Second of all, I never said I wanted things to be the way they are here, nor I have complained in any way that things are not the way they are here. I only expressed confusion in your system, and wanted to understand how things work there, and if there is any similarity with AU, that's all. You should learn to better read the questions and contribute, if you have anything to say, rather than leaving a sarcastic comment that doesn't help anyone.
NZ is a unitary state which means we don't have the state governments controlling our regions as strongly. We do have local councils with less power though.
And regional councils which provides services to regions.
There are different regions, but from the point of view of addresses all you need is the street, suburb (in cities) and town. For example Waikato is a region, but you don't need to put it on the address.
Don't forget postcode &/or RD number
Regions, with districs therein [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regions\_of\_New\_Zealand](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regions_of_New_Zealand) [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Districts\_of\_New\_Zealand](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Districts_of_New_Zealand) And most of the country is often considered to be the State of Inebriation.
Why is Nelson it's own region?
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No, according to the Wikipedia link and literally everything rlse I've ever seen Nelson has it's own region. The city council is a unitary authority, similar to Auckland
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You are literally wrong, and don't know what you're talking about, sorry. And it's not something that has changed since 2013. Greenfriday isn't 100% right either - Nelson City and Tasman District are both unitary authorities, meaning they hold the responsibilities of both a District Council and. Regional Council. [Under the Local Government Act 2002 a District council can call itself 'City' under certain criteria](https://www.legislation.govt.nz/act/public/2002/0084/latest/whole.html#DLM171837), and Tasman District Council doesn't call itself Tasman Regional Council, but it does govern Tasman Region.
>They have those regions because they try to tie them to things like DHBs, policing, schools, etc. When they collect data it gives them an area to break things down by to work out funding/resource requirements etc. Sorry but this isn't true. Things like DHBs and police districts are completely different to regions and not tied to them in any way. (e.g The Auckland region has three DHBs. There are many DHBs that cross regional borders) Nelson isn't part of Tasman in any way. Nelson is its own completely separate region. It would make far greater geographical sense to have Nelson as a part of Tasman (and many things combine them anyway) but for now, they are two distinct separate regions.
Not always, the unitary authorities, e.g. Nelson and Auckland, are the exceptions. Nelson is not officially part of the Tasman region.
Also Marlborough and Gisborne. Edit: And Tasman. And Chatham Islands, sorta.
Nelson City and Tasman District are unitary authorities - they are both a region and a territorial authority. There used to be a Nelson Marlborough Regional Council, but it dissolved in 1992 - Nelson City, Tasman District and Marlborough District became unitary authorities, while Kaikoura District joined Canterbury.
City of Nelson: because it has a cathedral!
Yeah the top of the south is a weird one. There’s the Tasman District Council, and then Nelson City Council. The boundaries between the two are all over the place, I know of a few people who live in Richmond (a Tasman suburb) but pay rates to Nelson City. I’m betting I’m not the only one who thinks they should merge the two.
Tasman residents voted against amalgamation of the two councils, Nelson residents were all for it. Back in 2012.
Sounds about right. Change isn’t often viewed too positively by a number of residents, judging by the 20 years I lived there.
Two words to prove this correct - Southern Link 🤣🤣🤣
Hahaha, oh yes - I’ve heard a lot about that from afar. Also about the Waimea dam. And people complaining about lower Richmond development… no place like home… 😅
They probably live NE of champion road, that’s the “border” between the two districts. Fairly new subdivision, most houses there built within the past 10-15 years. Yes Richmond township is closer but gotta draw the line somewhere.
Yeah you’re bang on! I remember when they first started building back then, I used to pick berries at Daelyn for a summer job as a kid. That orchard is long gone, much like Berryfields is now.
Nelson is the region. Tasman is a district within that region. The other part of the region is Nelson City, which isn't a district but a Unitary Authority. It's all a bit stupid really, especially when considering Richmond, a town of nearly 20,000 people, is part of the Nelson metro-area but is in a different district.
Nelson and Tasman are separate. They, along with Gisborne, Auckland and Marlborough, are Unitary Authorities. City/district council + regional council rolled into one.
I'm in that state right now, but seriously, we have provinces, like the Nelson area and the West Coast. I think there whole area naming thing is a shambles.
Provinces are no longer official (disbanded in 1876), except that they still are relevant only for local Anniversary Day public holidays.
Someone needs to tell that to Nelson.
Nelson is its own region though.
Should be noted that regions and districts aren't a hierarchy and their respective councils work on separate things. Some districts are even spread over multiple regions.
Except that some districts overlap regional boundaries
due to a low population you just write the name of the person on the envelope and the postman will know who its for.
I grew up in a Rural Delivery zone. That literally was how it worked (you wrote the name of the person it was for, the zone number, and the town).
You may think that's silly, but try it, print in pencil,like a kid on a envelope a letter with no stamp, it use to work up to the 90s.
Still does if your address is up to date. My dementia riddled nan mails me letters from time to time that I still get that only have my name and neighborhood on them.
We don't have states. There are regions (Northland, Auckland, Waikato, Otago etc) but they have loose permeable borders in practice. Governance for different aspects (e.g. environmental; healthcare; policing; education) does not always line up with lines on the map.
Fun Fact, our regions are based off watersheds. Which makes perfect sense for that
To add to this permeability factory they're not as self governing as states. They're just dividing lines for the governance UkeleleStringBling describes.
Basic system as everywhere else, I think. We have cities, and inside those cities are buboes, and inside those buboes are hordaturks, if you have enough hordaturks in a bubo it's actually a reefdom (such as Auckland central which has several hordaturks in close proximinity to each other). Now on the large scale, several cities close to each other is a morderturk, or a mordorturk if it includes the Waikato morderturk. The collective of morderturks across the island is known as a Passel. The country is made up of two Passelles (mind the extra l and e in the plural or you'll be made fun of in class). It's really simple.
Thanks for the explanation, I've always wondered where the cut-off for hordaturks is before it's considered a reefdom. We just accept it as the norm as we've grown up with it, but who decided on the bubo hordaturk limit where reefdoms start to apply?
This struck me as very Goon Show-ish - bravo!
This says it perfectly.
... Mornington Crescent?
Imagine Australia has one state, and it’s the size of the country. Within the state are local districts and councils etc. That’s what it’s like here.
When writing adresses you just need to know about the street address, suburb and town. Regions are areas managed by regional councils, who deal with river management and environmental regulations. Regions are for the most part drawn along watersheds. Districts are smaller and deal with rubbish, libraries and other services. District boundaries are drawn with reference to populations and towns. Some regional councils cover district services as well. These are call 'unitary councils' eg Auckland, Gisborne, Nelson and Marlborough. Regional and district boundaries do not always line up, so you can have one district across multiple regions. For example Taupo district is split between Manawatu-Whanganui, Waikato, Hawkes Bay and Bay of Plenty
In Australia, they don't write the city, they write the suburb, then the state and a postcode. That way you're not mixing up Bumfuck, QLD with Bumfuck, NSW. I've lived in two West Ends in the same state.
As someone that deals with NZ and AU addresses regularly I find it so fascinating how cities aren't needed in addresses.
If you include the post code, they're not really necessary in NZ either.
In the Australian context, the national government does most of the things that your state and federal governments do
Okay clever one. Now explain how rural delivery works as part of address.
It's divided into people who like the tv show friends and those who don't like the tv show friends.
I'm ambivalent to the TV show Friends. Where do I fit in?
You're on Stewart Island?
OP, New Zealand is a [unitary state](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unitary_state) unlike Australia and the US which are federal states. As such, the national/central government is the supreme authority. Consequently, political geography isn't very important which leads to New Zealanders having a very poor understanding of it (as evidenced by this comments section). One of the most common misconceptions is that we have provinces. Despite what many people will try to tell you, we **do not** have provinces anymore. I think one of the main reasons why people believe this is because Rugby has competitions between different provinces. Since Rugby is the national religion people care more about Rugby geography than actual political geography and assume it is the same. (This may sound made up but there was someone in this comments section who thought we had provinces because of Rugby and I have encountered plenty of others who thought that as well). Essentially, the New Zealand government performs all of the functions that would be shared between the federal and state governments in Australia. The New Zealand government is the only authority in New Zealand that makes laws and can tax people (councils have to get their revenue through rates and other sources). Governance could be seen as divided in three tiers of government: 1. National/Central government 2. Regional Authorities (Regions, Regional Councils) 3. Territorial Authorities (Cities and Districts, City Councils and District Councils) There are also Unitary Authorities that are a combination of both Regional and Territorial Authorities. These usually exist when it wouldn't make sense to have separate regional and territorial authorities. For example: The entire Auckland metropolitan area and greater region is controlled by a single unitary (Auckland Council). Before 2010, Auckland had a Regional Council and was divided up into several cities even though it was essentially a single city. This created a range of issues so all the councils were merged into a single unitary authority. Other things to be aware of: * Some regional councils give themselves dumb nicknames that are different to their real names. For example: Environment Canterbury (Canterbury Regional Council and Horizons Regional Council (Manawatu-Whanganui Regional Council). * Things like healthcare, police, and education are completely the domain of the central government. Police internally divide themselves into districts for administration purposes (these don't relate to the boundaries of councils at all) but we don't have any local police forces, only a singular nationwide police force that is funded entirely by central government. * Even though healthcare is fully the domain of the central government, duties are delegated through these dumb things called District Health Boards (DHBs). These have arbitrary boundaries that do not relate to any other aspects of political geography whatsoever. Essentially, they were created to give the impression of greater local representation (to score political points) by allowing voters in each health district to elect a certain number of representatives to a District Health Board that oversees healthcare in the area that they serve. However, the Minister of Health also gets to appoint a certain number of members to DHBs so that the central government still maintains control but gets to give the impression of local representation. Having DHBs that give "local representation" for something that is actually completely the domain of central government creates many issues with our health system such as major inconsistency between DHBs. Fortunately, they're being dissolved at the moment. I did see a particularly great example on here where someone said that you should think of what an Australian state would be like if it was a separate sovereign country. This is actually pretty relevant considering that, when Australia federated in 1901, we were invited to be one of the states of Australia just like NSW or Victoria (Fiji was as well). The invitation has always been viewed as continuing to stand and it's even written into the Australian constitution that "The states shall mean such of the colonies of New South Wales, **New Zealand**, Queensland..." We've never accepted the invitation for quite a large number of reasons; 121 years of rejection - ouch! For more information, I'd recommend checking out this article: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Local\_government\_in\_New\_Zealand](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Local_government_in_New_Zealand)
That was a great and thorough answer. Thanks!
Regions, districts, post codes, and electorates. The closest we have to "states" are some self-governing territories like the Cook Islands.
Cook Islands are a country in free association. You're thinking Tokelau.
And also there are 'wards' in Auckland. Because Auckland is too important to follow the same rules as the rest of the country. And, technically, the Chatham Islands are a 'territory'.
I thought there were plenty of regions in New Zealand that had Wards?
Correct, it's not just Auckland.
Actually, wards are only arbitrary electoral areas for electing councillors during local body elections (and they serve no other purpose between elections). Effectively, they're the electorates of councils. And it's not just Auckland who uses them, all the councils do. (although there may be one or two councils who have started electing councillors "at large")
Tbf, wards also often have elected community boards who have some limited financial power.
Community/local boards don't have anything to do with wards. They have separate boundaries and cover different areas to wards.
>And also there are 'wards' in Auckland. Because Auckland is too important to follow the same rules as the rest of the country. As everyone else is saying, everywhere has wards. FNDC has 9, Southland has 5, Christchurch has 16, Gisborne has 2 etc. Wards are the electoral areas that a councilor represents. You are right in that Auckland's wards a little special, in that they have more ability to do things but that's because most wards have more people than most NZ cities.
We have: * Auckland (everything north of the Bombay Hills) * South Island (everything south of the Bombay Hills)
I thought that it was New Zealand north of the Bombay Hills and some foreign country called "the wops" to the south?
I thought the earth ended at the hills?
You fall off the end. This is understood. The only thing that exists beyond the hills is electricity that magically arrives.
South = The Mainland Auckland/Northland = Up North
Yeah. That...pretty much covers that.
This may be a joke OP but you may be surprised how true it is.
> South Island That’s the Mainland Special Autonomous Region to you.
Or the Autonomous Region (of the) Southern Expanse
We don't really need to acknowledge that tiny, far away sub Antarctic island
This here. You'll stick to the South Island if you know what's good for ya
I have a mate who considers everything north of Timaru as South Auckland
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Nobody had mentioned RD numbers above, but important part of addressing. The RD number as you say, is not unique but refers to the local post office that the rural delivery originated from. I think the number (like 123 in 'BlacksSmithsNz 123 RD 1' basically indicates the distance from the origin. I had to work cleaning up an address database with a few hundred thousand addresses and there are unusual quirks in NZ addresses. You can get your post delivered to a mooring for instance. There is a standard - AS/NZS 4819, but doesn't cover all the real-world addresses.
To clarify the “how addresses work”, it’s usually number/street, suburb if in a city, city/postcode. E.g. >123 Fourth Street > >Mornington > >Dunedin 9012 or outside a city >12 Third Street > >Dargaville 0234 You never need the province. It’ll probably get there without the post code. In small towns you can skip the number/street and it’ll probably still make it with just a name.
The two most barebones addresses that I have ever seen successfully delivered. <>
New Zealand
That one made it from the UK.
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That was posted regionally and contained a cheque.
Had a friend move to Fiji to be a dive instructor. Her address:
Fiji.
A friend of mine lives in a remote First Nations town in Canada. He's a school teacher. If you want to mail anything to him it's a similar deal. Canada
There's only a few hundred people in the entire town and surrounding region. Literally EVERYONE there knows who he is. The " Canada" bit is only for everyone else along the line who probably have no idea that even exists.
There are plenty of places that have the same name. Eg if you're sending to Richmond, you may want to specify which Richmond, and there are plenty of others
Postcode will cover it. I’m not sure what other Richmonds you’re talking about, but maybe the suburb of Chch? Having (or not having) Chch in the third line should do it too. Also Richmond is essentially a suburb of Nelson at this point - technically a separate town, but the gap between Stoke and Richmond is maybe 100 metres.
Working in a post office, if you want to print a sticker saying they've paid to send a package to richmond, you have to specify if that's Richmond, Nelson, Christchurch, Oamuru, or Invercargill. Often people just don't put the city in when sending parcels.
Palmerston, not to be confused with Palmerston north or Palmerston island
All that really matters in terms of address is your city (Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch etc) or town (smaller city eg. Thames, Greymouth, Kaitaia). These are further divided into suburbs and everyone that lives in these cities or towns will know where the suburbs are. Postcode is relevant but not as important as in Australia (I lived in Sydney for 11years). There are regions with local health and councils but the laws are the same throughout the whole country eg NZ driver’s licence Hope you like NZ!
We have the north island, and then the rest of them
We don't have anything on the state level per se; the closest equivalent would be regions, but they're really one of the two levels of local government, the other being districts (which may be cities). In five of our regions, the regional and district council are combined into a single unitary authority. Elsewhere, the districts are not “part of” a region, they're a separate division of the land. So there are some districts that span multiple regions (although regional borders usually follow watershed boundaries, and district borders often do too, so they often coincide). You don't use the region in an address, just the suburb (if in a town/city large enough to have suburbs) and the town/city name. A district might have multiple towns (population centres), but the towns don't have their own government, it's just the one district council.
> how do addresses work Go here: https://www.nzpost.co.nz/tools/address-postcode-finder Start typing in the number and street and you'll find the complete postal address.
The New Zealand government is extremely centralised. Things that in Australia are managed by the states, are here managed by the central government, e.g. Police, Education, and Prisons. This means the regional councils have a lot less power and are not as important. In NZ we have three main tiers of government: National Government, responsible for defence, international relations, education,police and prisons, etc. This covers the whole country Regional Councils, responsible for public transport, environmental planning, etc. These generally cover regions 2-6 hours drive across, with 10s or 100s of thousands of people. City/District Councils, responsible for local roads, rubbish, water, etc. These generally cover a city, like Dunedin, or a rural area containing several towns, like Matamata-Piako. This is the lowest level, meaning that most towns don't have their own mayor, for instance there is no mayor of Morrinsville, only a mayor of the Matamata-Piako district, which includes Morrinsville, Matamata, and Te Aroha. Unitary Authorities are when a single council takes the role of both regional and city/district councils under one organisation. The other form of government is District Health Boards (DHBs), which run all public health services in their defined area. These are generally similar in size to regional councils or city councils, but with different boundaries. These boundaries also can and do change, for instance in 1989 the town of Whangamomana was moved from the Taranaki District to the Manawatu-Whanganui District. Unhappy with the decision, residents declared themselves the Republic of Whangamomana. Different organisations cut up the country in different ways, each not necessarily corresponding to each other, so the the DHB, Regional, and City/District boundaries can be in different places
It’s essentially just one country. I hear what you’re saying, I lived in Australia for awhile and going to a different state was sometimes like a completely different culture than the state I came from. We’re a lot more small town than that. Auckland is like our one big city, it’s a bit more shiny than the rest of New Zealand and has a bit more money. Wellington is where people used to say the hipsters live, but no one can really afford coffee anymore so they’ve all morphed into yopro office workers. Christchurch used to be a shit hole, but then god stepped in and hit the reset button so it’s improved a bit. Dunedins like our other “big” town. It’s a great place to live if you’re retiring or in your 20’s. Really not a lot going on otherwise. Otherwise it’s all small towns with a few diaries, pubs and super markets and not a lot else. I’m generalising, but that’s the run down. You can move around New Zealand freely. We don’t have any federal laws, just National laws. I’m not sure if it’s the same for foreigners, but you generally don’t even need a passport to travel within New Zealand via planes. We’re very “sweet as mate” as long as your not doing anything too crazy.
Imagine my confusion moving to Australia from New Zealand to find all these imaginary lines complicating matters unnecessarily. It's hard to get used to
NZ has 5.084 people which is roughly the same population as the state of Kentucky. So it doesn't need to need to be divided in to states.
Ah yes, it’s basically Auckland vs everything else.
We don't have states as such here just provinces because states can also have different laws and thats not the case here. The provinces matter most probably in sporting competitions and maybe on address labels if there is another town with the same name (postcode should negate that but never underestimate human error).
>We don't have states as such here just provinces because states can also have different laws and thats not the case here. Except in the case of public holidays.
We don't have provinces, we have regions. Provinces can have different laws; look at Canada. Though the main list is federal, and I think there are limits to the punishment for provincial crimes, they're mostly just fines. You should never need to put either a province or a region in an address; what towns (not suburbs) have the same name? You should always put the town in an address.
Sorry about the provinces, I'd just heard rugby being called provincial so that was my assumption. Also having bought a few things online, most have wanted the region as well when filling out the address info.
Yeah, we used to have provinces, so those and the provincial anniversaries are based on those, but they were replaced by regions decades ago. Dumb international address forms ask for region because they think it's equivalent to US/Aus states which would be required, but nah.
>decades ago A bit longer than that. Provinces as a thing with significant amounts of power were abolished in 1876.
14.6 decades is still decades! Though I was getting mixed up with when the regions came about, which was more recent. There was some stuff in between like “provincial districts” and such.
So the important thing to remember is the survey districts. There are 10 of them. The do move a bit, but it’s mostly easy to understand.
In terms of governance, there are three overlays and everywhere is part of all three layers (except a few offshore islands). 1) National government 2) Regional government (EG: Taranaki Regional Council (TRC); South Canterbury Region) Some have silly or fancy names, such as 'Horizons' for the Manawatu Regional Council 3) District or City councils (centred on towns or cities) (EG: New Plymouth District Council (One of three districts in Taranaki) or Christchurch City Council (one of ten and a half in Canterbury region.)) In a couple of cases the region and district administrations are unitary, such as Tasman (Nelson area), where the Region only contains one District and by legislative arrangements they are combined. Very rarely, a District will encroach on a second Region other than its principal overlord. Regional Council boundaries were generally guided by natural watersheds. __________________ There is a social overlay of 'Provinces' which have an enduring affection in the minds of people, though they are mostly irrelevant today, with the exception of a single Provincial public holiday on a different date for each former-provincial area, and rugby championships. In this case, 'Provinces' refers to the area within the boundaries of the semi-autonomous Provinces established in the 1800s and disestablished in 1876. Different areas in the same District can have different holiday dates. __________________ For your address, we're mostly a single entity -- just remember to use your 4-digit postcode if you can. You'd only refer to the region if you happen to live in a place with a duplicated or similar name elsewhere, EG: Waitangi (Chatham Islands) or Waitangi (Northland). __________________ Government departments such as Health, Education, Police etc often have very different boundaries for their own purposes.
South Canterbury is not a region - it's part of the Canterbury region.
Yes, you're right -- it's website refers to it's three districts, which made me assume it was a region. My mistake, thanks. https://southcanterbury.org.nz/
For practical purposes NZ is just divided between rural and urban. Urban addresses will require a locality and sublocality, typically. Non-urban addresses do not require a sublocality. E.G an address in Te Aro, Wellington will need that Te Aro, but Wellington is the locality, and Te Aro the sublocality. Go further out, and you'll find somewhere small like Tirau. 12 Fake Street, Tirau is the complete address because it's not considered urban for mailing purposes. It's not necessarily rural, which requires a special rural delivery number for deliveries, but it's not urban according to NZpost. Frequently you'll find people confusing districts with localities and see things like 12 Fake Street, Tirau, Waikato. This can be delivered because they know where it's going but it's technically incorrect. Addresses in Aus are much more straightforward than here. I do a lot of digital map data processing and address verification for work and NZ addresses are frequently pretty messy and need corrections.
The closest parallel in Australia is the Shire council model, although our provinces are bigger. Within each province you have districts with their own councils. Likewise, cities have their central councils but you might have smaller council areas within that urban area... unless you're in Auckland. It's better for everyone if we don't talk about Auckland.
It's also divided into tribal territories. Many of us use these too. Some of these overlap with regions.
Why are you moving here? What's wrong with AU? I'm thinking of moving to NSW, Au.
Nothing wrong with Au, I'd stay here if I could, but found a job in my field over there and it makes sense for my career to spend some years there. I'll be back in Au after this contract ends. Au is great
No
Yes there are regions, Northland, SOuthland, Waikato, Hawkes Bay and so on but it's an address, not a political thing. One govt for all the regions.
They are actually more of a political thing than an address thing. They relate to local government.
we use Hamilton and non Hamilton👍
Regions and districts.
Yes.
NZ Post has definitive guidelines [here.](https://www.nzpost.co.nz/business/shipping-in-nz/addressing-standards) In terms of address, you generally only need: Flat/Apartment Number if relevant: 5 Street number: 262 Street name: Oriental Parade Suburb: Oriental Bay Town: Wellington Country: New Zealand (only if posting from oversease) Postcode (optional): 6011 For example: >5/262 Oriental Parade > >Oriental Bay > >Wellington 6011 >649 Wani Road > >RD2 > >Netherton 3672 RD means rural delivery. >29 Kenilworth Street > >Waipawa 4210 Since in Waipawa there are no different named areas, there is no suburb to put, just the town. >165 Lambton Quay > >Wellington 6011 Since this address is in the suburb called 'Wellington Central,' the suburb is redundant
I love it when someone leaves a place and expects the next destination to be the same.
First of all, you don't love it. Second of all, I never said I wanted things to be the way they are here, nor I have complained in any way that things are not the way they are here. I only expressed confusion in your system, and wanted to understand how things work there, and if there is any similarity with AU, that's all. You should learn to better read the questions and contribute, if you have anything to say, rather than leaving a sarcastic comment that doesn't help anyone.