Welcome to Whenua: Our Land, Our History, an interactive map of New Zealand showing how Māori land passed into Pākehā ownership and the stories surrounding it.

Tahuri mai ki a Whenua: he kohinga kōrero e pa ana ki tō tātou motu me tō tātou hītori, he mapi taunekeneke hoki e whakaatu ana i ngā āhuatanga mō te rironga o ngā whenua Māori ki a tauiwi. He kaupapa raraunga a Whenua nā Te Hērora, e tautokotia ai e Irirangi Te Motu me Adrienne Paul (Ngāti Awa, Ngāi Tūhoe), he pukenga ture whenua Māori nō te kura rōia o te Whare Wānanga o Waitaha.

Whenua: Our Land, Our History confronts questions some of us prefer not to ask because they raise uncomfortable issues about Aotearoa’s colonial legacy. And the conversation has become even more charged, in response to the Treaty Principles Bill and moves to rename departments in English.

The answers are essential to understanding our history. It’s summed up in the Māori proverb “ka mua, ka muri: walking backwards into the future”. To face what’s ahead as a country, we must first know our past.

That’s why the New Zealand Herald has launched Whenua. We hope this project will provide useful context for our current political debates, fill in some awkward knowledge gaps for many New Zealanders and spark a few much-needed conversations. As the 2022 launch of a compulsory New Zealand history school curriculum showed, many of us don’t know our own country’s past. Whenua (meaning “the land, the place where we belong”) aims to help redress that balance.

The centrepiece is this interactive map, compiled by Herald head of data journalism Chris Knox, which shows the pattern of land changing hands across the country. You can click to see the historic claims to each area. Treaty of Waitangi settlements record the official land loss for many iwi and the interactive shows which law changes and government decisions impacted your region.

STORY CONTINUES AFTER THE INTERACTIVE

Almost all Treaty settlements include an historical account agreed to by both the Crown and the Iwi in question. The New Zealand Herald has begun the task of converting these histories into an interactive map that you can explore.

We began with the two biggest settlements, Waikato-Tainui and Ngāi Tahu, and the settlement with Ngāti Whātua o Ōrākei – the iwi that historically controlled the land where the Herald’s main office sits. Additional land transfers in Hawke’s Bay, Wellington, Taranaki and the Upper South Island have been included, and there are many more to come.

A historical overview gives you more detail about the massive changes in land ownership from Māori to Pākehā.

To mark the project, Tainui, Ngāi Tahu and Ngāti Whātua o Ōrākei have shared their stories with Herald data journalist Julia Gabel (Ngāti Kahu, Pākehā). The tribal histories, which are also illustrated on the interactive map, feature:

• Ngarimu Blair on Ngāti Whatua o Ōrākei and the story of Auckland
• How British settlers’ invasion of the Waikato forced Tainui into a 20-year exile, as told by Rahui Papa. The Herald’s acknowledgment of its role and early coverage of the invasion can be read here.
• Tā Tipene O’Regan on land loss, survival & the Ngāi Tahu story

Herald journalists also tell stories of our land:

• Simon Wilson asks: Are we ready as a country to have this conversation yet?
• Kaupapa Māori editor Joseph Los’e (Ngāti Maniapoto, Tainui, Ngāti Tonga) explains what land loss means for urban Māori with no strong iwi relationships
• David Fisher tells the moving story of a Pākehā family who gave back the pā

Whenua was overseen by Herald planning editor Andrew Laxon and Paul Slater spearheaded art and design.

Watch the videos filmed by the Herald’s Mike Scott:

Data sources

• Land transfers shown on the map should be considered as descriptive not authoritative. Features have been traced from the Deeds of Settlement and Waitangi Tribunal reports.
• Details of land transferred are drawn primarily from the “Deed of Settlement” that accompanies each completed Treaty Settlement. These can be found on Te Arawhiti’s website.
• In some cases additional details were taken from the original Waitangi Tribunal reports
• Iwi and hapū areas of interest are based on GIS layers provided by Te Puni Kōkiri and are accompanied by the following definition: “An area of interest is a map used for Treaty settlement purposes only. The Crown acknowledges more than one group may have interests in an area of interest. Relative interests may vary within that area. Area of interest maps are not necessarily intended to be a definitive statement of a group’s interests” and the following disclaimer: “Users should note that some features within this feature class, are based on data retrieved from sources other than Te Puni Kōkiri. Iwi Areas of Interest are based on data provided by iwi organisations and interested parties. Te Puni Kōkiri acknowledges there may be some inaccuracies. The presence of the data in this feature class does not imply endorsement or any statement about the accuracy of that information by Te Puni Kōkiri or the Crown.”
• Land and capital values were provided by Valocity in July 2024.
• Sums of money from prior to 1862 were inflation adjusted to 1862 values using the Bank of England’s inflation calculator. Sums of money from 1862 onwards were inflation adjusted using the Reserve Bank of New Zealand’s inflation calculator.
• The map uses a base layer provided by OpenStreet maps with elevation data from Linz.

Whenua is a New Zealand Herald data-led project, supported by the Public Interest Journalism Fund, in association with Māori land legal expert Dr Adrienne Paul (Ngāti Awa, Ngāi Tuhoe). Dr Paul, who worked on the project in her role at the University of Canterbury law school, now lectures at the Auckland University of Technology.