A smoothed outline of Aotearoa New Zealand’s coast was used to construct coastal segments of roughly 10 km width (depending on complexity of the coastline), extending out to the 12 nm Territorial Sea limit. Human access to coastal areas may not directly scale with population in areas with limited coastal access via roadways. This map provides information on which coastal areas are most accessible. To compare human access to coastal segments, the total length of roads in metres that overlap with the 10 km segment was calculated. Road Section Geometry was accessed from Land Information New Zealand (LINZ), updated in 2016. Because these segments don’t occur in isolation, a 10 km buffer was used around each coastal segment to capture roads in inland and adjacent coastal areas.

Limitations and Uncertainties:

We recognise that 10 km coastal segments are arbitrary boundaries for the NZ coastline, and further, that we extended all values for each polygon out to the 12 nm Territorial Sea boundary to allow better visualisation of how land-based inputs and population accessibility vary in NZ. This extension seaward is arbitrary, and does not incorporate likely decreasing impacts offshore from the coast. Segments for Stewart Island were not included and for coastlines with large, narrow inlets, such as in Fiordland, segments do not include the inner fiords as this would increase the segment size, making comparisons between segments less consistent. Roads may not represent exact locations and do not indicate whether or not access is legal.

Source: NZ Roads: Road Section Geometry - Addressing | | GIS Data Map Mapping | LINZ Data Service

Last updated:

1 July 2023

A smoothed outline of Aotearoa New Zealand’s coast was used to construct coastal segments of roughly 10 km width (depending on complexity of the coastline), extending out to the 12 nm Territorial Sea limit. Human access to coastal areas may not directly scale with population in areas with limited coastal access via roadways. This map provides information on which coastal areas are most accessible. To compare human access to coastal segments, the total length of roads in metres that overlap with the 10 km segment was calculated. Road Section Geometry was accessed from Land Information New Zealand (LINZ), updated in 2016. Because these segments don’t occur in isolation, a 10 km buffer was used around each coastal segment to capture roads in inland and adjacent coastal areas.

Limitations and Uncertainties:

We recognise that 10 km coastal segments are arbitrary boundaries for the NZ coastline, and further, that we extended all values for each polygon out to the 12 nm Territorial Sea boundary to allow better visualisation of how land-based inputs and population accessibility vary in NZ. This extension seaward is arbitrary, and does not incorporate likely decreasing impacts offshore from the coast. Segments for Stewart Island were not included and for coastlines with large, narrow inlets, such as in Fiordland, segments do not include the inner fiords as this would increase the segment size, making comparisons between segments less consistent. Roads may not represent exact locations and do not indicate whether or not access is legal.

Source: NZ Roads: Road Section Geometry - Addressing | | GIS Data Map Mapping | LINZ Data Service

Last updated:

1 July 2023