Council GIS and open data
Councils publish some of the most detailed spatial information available for a particular whenua, awa, property or community: hazards, planning zones, infrastructure, consents, local imagery, environmental monitoring, transport and property context.
The difficulty is finding it. One council may use LocalMaps, another ArcGIS Hub, another an ePlan, another a REST directory, and several councils may share one regional portal.
This section is a practical route into those systems.
Start by need
| If you need... | Start here |
|---|---|
| regional hazards, rivers, environmental monitoring | Regional and unitary councils |
| local property, district plan, utilities or city/district data | Territorial and shared portals |
| underlying live GIS services | ArcGIS REST and live services |
| flood, planning or property evidence | Hazards, planning and property |
| help extracting data from a viewer | How to use council portals |
Download the council GIS index CSV for a compact list of the major portals checked in this pass.
Why council data matters to Māori GIS
For iwi and hapū planners, council layers can show the administrative/planning context around whenua, statutory overlays, hazards and infrastructure. Taiao teams can find freshwater, groundwater, coastal, biodiversity and monitoring layers. Marae and Māori land projects can use local access, property, hazard and service context. Historical researchers may find old aerials, contours, plans and local archives.
The council dataset remains evidence created for the council's purpose. An iwi area, site of significance, cultural overlay or similar council layer should be read with its metadata and planning/source context rather than treated as a complete representation of Māori relationships to place.
Viewer versus data service
A council viewer is usually best for discovery. If you need repeatable GIS analysis, look for the underlying:
- download
- FeatureServer
- MapServer
- WFS
- WMS/WMTS
- open-data item
- ePlan layer
Record the layer title, publisher, source URL and date rather than saving a screenshot as the only evidence.
Currency
Council portals change frequently. Every link in this section is checked as a source at review time, but service URLs can move independently of the public landing page. Prefer the council's official maps/open-data page as the durable starting point when a service endpoint changes.
Last reviewed: 26 August 2026