Māori Studies: Whenua Māori Rauemi

What is Whenua Māori?

   Te Ture Whenua Māori Act 1993, Māori Land Act 1993 

These two types of Māori land are Māori freehold land and Māori customary land information from Te Tumu Paeroa can be found here.

Image from Archives NZ 

These minute books contain judges' notes from court sittings of the Native and Māori Land Court and are a valuable source of land information.

Microfilm copies of these up to 1975 are held at the Hocken. There are physical indexes to these minute books that give sitting dates and locations as well as judge’s names. You will need to visit the Hocken in person to use the microfilm and the accompanying indexes. Staff are available to help you get started.

The University of Auckland has provided an online index to the MLCMB that goes up to 1910, as well as a tip sheet for searching the index. N.B. the reel numbers in the online index are different from the reel numbers at the Hocken  - there is a finding aid available at the Hocken to assist you. 

An online repository of the WAI reports, such as the WAI-27 for Ngāi Tahu. WAI reports contain a lot of historical information from research and oral accounts. You can search for the full reports and related documents by WAI number or use the map to find reports available by area. There are also bibliographies available to browse by author and region. 

Note: most documents are available online. 

           Te Ika-a-Maui

    North Island Māori Land Loss 1860-2000

        Te Waipounamu

    South Island Land Loss 

Images: Te Ara

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Search Māori land details via block, owner, or location. Includes mainly customary and freehold land, but also mahingā kai and other areas. You can search Māori Land Online here.

Searching for Māori Land records from here:

There are three critical pieces of search information that are required to begin a search of Māori land, they are:

• owner's name
• block name
• Māori Land Court District in which the land is situated 

Tupu. nz is here to help whānau connect with, govern, and develop whenua Māori across Aotearoa. Our site is managed by the team at Te Puni Kōkiri — the Ministry of Māori Development.

Whenua and Māori Land within Archives NZ have many different aspects of Māori land that can be researched in their collections, although the search can be complicated. Land records and other relevant material are often held regionally, so researchers may need to work across more than one of our archives, for example, Wellington and Auckland.

Māori Maps is an open online resource where you can explore Māori placenames, land blocks, and districts, or search for hapū, marae, iwi, and more. 

Use this online cultural map of the Ngāi Tahu rohe to discover traditional place names and their histories: 

Popup panels provide information on selected areas and include reference lists of sources used.