The pacific Island communities of New Zealand are a significant part of today's society, being about 300,000 as of at the 2006 Census.

• 60% of pacific Islanders live in the Auckland Region
• The PI population is expected to grow by 2.4% p.a. through to 480,000 in 2026
• Samoans account for 49% of the PI population
• 62% of Samoans use Samoan as their first language
• 54% of Tongans use Tongan as their first language

The Pacific Peoples Ethnic Groupings are broken down in the table below:

 

Pacific Peoples	2006 Population	%age growth from 2001
Samoan	131,103	14
Cook Island Maori	58,011	10.3
Tongan	50,478	24
Niuean	22,476	11.6
Fijian	9,864	40
Tokelauan	6,822	9.9
Tuvaluan	2,625	33

 

 

Please click on one of the communities in the left column to find out more about any of these communities.