Auckland Map

• The proportion of Asians and other Non-European immigrants has increased during the last decades due to immigration, and the removal of restrictions directly or indirectly based on race. Immigration to New Zealand is heavily concentrated towards Auckland (partly for job market reasons). This strong focus on Auckland has led the immigration services to award extra points towards immigration visa requirements for people intending to move to other parts of New Zealand.

• The following table shows the ethnic profile of Auckland's population, as recorded in the 2001 and 2006 New Zealand Census. The percentages add up to more than 100%, as some people counted themselves as belonging to more than one ethnic group. Figures for 2006 refer to the whole Auckland Region, not just the urban area. The substantial percentage drop of 'Europeans' was mainly caused by the increasing numbers of people from this group choosing to define themselves as 'New Zealanders' - even though this was not one of the groups listed on the census form.

• The 2006 Census also provides information about the multilinguality of the region. 867,825 people in the Auckland Region spoke one language only, 274,863 spoke two, and 57,051 three or more.

• Auckland has a number of important educational institutions, including some of the largest universities in the country. Auckland is a major centre of overseas language education, with large numbers of foreign students (particularly East Asians) coming to the city for several months or years to learn English or study at universities - although numbers New Zealand-wide have dropped substantially since peaking in 2003. As of 2007, there are around 50 NZQA certified schools and institutes teaching English in the Auckland area.

• Amongst the most important tertiary educational institutes are the University of Auckland (City, Tamaki, Epsom, Grafton Campus and satellite campuses), AUT (City, North Shore and Manukau campus), Massey University (Albany campus) and the Manukau Institute of Technology (Otara campus), with Unitec New Zealand (Mt Albert campus) being the largest technical institute in Auckland.

• The Auckland Council is the local authority with jurisdiction over the city of Auckland, along with surrounding rural areas, parkland, and the islands of the Hauraki Gulf.

• From 1989 to 2010 Auckland was governed by several separate city and district councils. In the late 2000s, New Zealand's central government and parts of Auckland's society felt that this large number of councils, and the lack of strong regional government (with the Auckland Regional Council having only limited powers) were hindering Auckland's progress. A Royal Commission on Auckland Governance was set up in 2007, and in 2009 recommended a unified local governance structure for Auckland, amalgamating the councils. Government subsequently announced that a "super city" would be set up with a single mayor by the time of New Zealand's local body elections in 2010. Many aspects of the reorganisation were or are still controversial, from matters such as the form of representation for Maori, the inclusion or exclusion of rural council areas in the super city, to the role of council-controlled organisations that are intended to place much of the day to day business of council services at arms length from the elected Council.

• In October 2010, Manukau City mayor Len Brown was elected the mayor of the amalgamated Auckland Council.

• Most major international corporations have an Auckland office, as the city is the economic capital of the nation. The most expensive office space is around lower Queen Street and the Viaduct Basin in the Auckland CBD, where many financial and business services are located, which make up a large percentage of the CBD economy. A large proportion of the technical and trades workforce is based in the industrial zones of South Auckland.

• The largest commercial and industrial areas of Greater Auckland are in the southeast of Auckland City and the western parts of Manukau City, mostly bordering the Manukau Harbour and the Tamaki River estuary.

• The sub-national GDP of the Auckland region was estimated at US$47.6 billion in 2003, 36% of New Zealand's national GDP, 15% greater than the entire South Island.

• Auckland's status as the largest commercial centre of the country reflects in the high median personal income (per working person, per year) which was NZ$44,304 (approx. US$33,000) for the region in 2005, with jobs in the Auckland CBD often earning more. The median personal income (for all persons older than 15 years of age, per year) was NZ$22,300 (2001), behind only North Shore City (also part of the Greater Auckland area) and Wellington. While office workers still account for a large part of Auckland's commuters, large office developments in other parts of the city, for example in Takapuna or Albany, both on the North Shore, are slowly becoming more common, reducing concentration on the Auckland CBD somewhat.