Māori Maps and Te Whata
Māori Maps and Te Whata are useful because they solve different public data problems. Māori Maps is a national gateway centred on marae. Te Whata is an iwi-oriented data platform for statistics, profiles and spatial views.
Neither needs to become a universal database of Māori information to be useful.
Who this example helps
This case is useful for:
- marae and iwi teams designing public-facing map services
- iwi planning and strategy teams thinking beyond desktop GIS
- GIS practitioners deciding what belongs in a public product
- public-sector analysts using government-originated data with Māori organisations
See the broader Māori GIS projects library for current links and related platforms.
Māori Maps
Māori Maps is administered by Te Potiki National Trust and provides a public gateway to marae around Aotearoa.
Its design lesson is focus. A visitor can find a marae, location and public information without the service trying to contain every whakapapa, history or organisational record associated with that marae.
Its current Māori land view also makes the date of the old Māori Land Court spatial layer explicit and points people to Pātaka Whenua for current land information. For GIS practitioners, that is good source hygiene: useful historic or legacy data can remain visible when its age and role are clear.
Continue with Marae GIS and Māori land data.
Te Whata
Te Whata was designed by Te Kāhui Raraunga as an iwi data platform. It brings together profiles, data and spatial views in a form intended to support iwi use rather than expecting every user to query source systems or run GIS software.
For an iwi planning team, that demonstrates an important point: the useful geospatial product may be a profile, chart, map and narrative assembled around a planning question rather than a GIS editor.
Continue with GIS data for Aotearoa and Government and councils.
Working with government-source data
Māori-led infrastructure can use Crown-originated and public datasets while changing how those data are assembled, interpreted and made useful to iwi.
That matters because many Māori GIS questions require cadastral, Census, hazard, planning or environmental data that originate in public institutions. The task is to keep the source and purpose visible rather than pretending an external dataset becomes Māori-held knowledge merely because it is displayed in an iwi platform.
See Authoritative for what? and Provenance and source checking.
Two public-product patterns
| Product | Main job | Useful design lesson |
|---|---|---|
| Māori Maps | help people find and connect with marae | keep the public purpose narrow and obvious |
| Te Whata | make data more useful for iwi planning and understanding | combine statistics, maps and narrative around iwi needs |
A local hapū GIS, cultural archive or taiao database can have a completely different architecture. These projects are examples, not templates to impose elsewhere.
Related pages
- Māori GIS projects and platforms
- Publishing Māori GIS maps
- Prepare information for sharing
- Starting an iwi or hapū GIS
Sources
Last reviewed: 26 August 2026