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Last reviewed: 16 August 2026

Mapping colonisation

GIS can make historical change visible in ways that are difficult to see in a table or report.

It can show land moving through different legal systems, whenua being divided by survey, roads and public works cutting across earlier landscapes, wetlands disappearing, rivers changing course, names changing and remaining Māori land becoming increasingly fragmented or landlocked.

The danger is that a powerful map can make a complicated history look simpler than the evidence supports.

The aim of this page is therefore not to produce one colonisation layer. It is to build careful spatial evidence around particular processes, periods and places.

Start with one historical question​

Useful questions include:

  • How did Māori landholding change in this rohe over a defined period?
  • Which land was taken through a particular public work?
  • How did survey subdivision alter an earlier block?
  • Where did raupatu apply and what happened to particular areas afterwards?
  • Which former wetlands, waterways or coastal areas have been modified?
  • How did roads, rail or urban expansion change access to whenua?
  • Which ingoa wāhi disappeared from later official maps?

Do not begin with map all land loss. The source work becomes unmanageable and different legal processes get flattened together.

Treat cadastral data as a later layer, not the beginning of time​

Modern cadastral parcels are useful for locating present-day land.

They should not be projected backwards as though today's parcel structure existed before survey and title systems.

For historical work, keep separate representations such as:

  • customary or historically described areas where evidence supports them
  • original surveyed Māori blocks
  • later partitions
  • Crown purchase areas
  • confiscation or raupatu areas
  • reserves
  • public works takings
  • modern parcels

Each layer answers a different question.

Build a source stack​

Historical GIS becomes stronger when several kinds of evidence can be compared.

Waitangi Tribunal material​

Tribunal reports and inquiry records can provide:

  • historical findings
  • maps
  • claimant evidence
  • research reports
  • document banks
  • descriptions of land transactions and Crown actions

Use the inquiry and report relevant to the rohe rather than relying on a national generalisation.

Archives New Zealand​

Archives New Zealand holds extensive Māori land and land-administration records, including:

  • Māori Land Plans
  • survey plans and field books
  • Crown purchase deeds
  • public works plans and proclamations
  • roll plans
  • land sale plans
  • Māori Land Court-related records
  • Raupatu Document Bank material

Its Whenua and Māori Land research guide is a strong starting point.

Te Kooti Whenua Māori​

Māori Land Court records can help trace:

  • blocks
  • partitions
  • orders
  • ownership context
  • minute-book references

Use Court material for the questions it can answer rather than treating a current block polygon as a complete history of the whenua.

LINZ and historic imagery​

Useful sources include:

  • survey plans
  • cadastral records
  • historical aerial imagery
  • Retrolens
  • current and historic topographic mapping
  • Gazetteer and place-name information

Newspapers and other archives​

Papers Past and other collections may help with:

  • land sales
  • public works notices
  • local disputes
  • road and railway construction
  • place names
  • changing descriptions of landscapes

Treat newspapers as sources requiring interpretation, not as authoritative spatial records.

Map processes separately​

A clearer project keeps different processes in separate layers or tables.

For example:

01_original_blocks
02_crown_purchases
03_raupatu
04_reserves
05_partitions
06_public_works
07_roads_and_rail
08_environmental_change
09_current_maori_land

This avoids making very different events look like one identical form of transfer.

Use time deliberately​

Colonisation is not one date.

A time-enabled map can show:

  • before a transaction
  • immediately after
  • later subdivision
  • later Crown or private ownership patterns
  • subsequent public works or infrastructure
  • present-day relationships

Choose time slices that match the historical question rather than regular ten-year intervals merely because they are convenient.

Mapping land alienation​

If the kaupapa is land alienation, be precise about what the geometry represents.

Possible categories may include:

  • land purchased by the Crown
  • land purchased privately under a particular legal setting
  • confiscated land
  • land vested in another body
  • land taken for public works
  • land sold after individualisation of title
  • land remaining in Māori ownership

Do not combine these into a single lost land layer unless the purpose and method are explained clearly.

Raupatu​

Raupatu mapping requires particular care because historical proclamations, confiscation districts, returned lands, reserves and later transactions can involve different geometries and dates.

Keep:

  • source document
  • legal or historical basis
  • date
  • whether the geometry is exact, reconstructed or indicative
  • relationship to later returns or reservations

The Waitangi Tribunal Raupatu Document Bank and relevant inquiry reports are important sources for detailed work.

Public works​

Roads, railways, schools, defence works and other public projects can be mapped by combining:

  • Gazette proclamations
  • public works plans
  • survey plans
  • current parcels
  • historical imagery
  • local records and kōrero

A useful map may show not only the land taken but the effect on access, fragmentation and remaining whenua.

Environmental transformation​

Colonisation is also visible through changes to taiao.

GIS can compare:

  • former and current wetlands
  • river alignments
  • drainage networks
  • forest cover
  • coastlines
  • roads and settlement
  • plantation forestry
  • urban expansion

Historic imagery is especially useful from the twentieth century onward. Earlier change may require maps, survey descriptions, ecological reconstruction and local knowledge.

Do not imply that an old aerial photograph explains why a change occurred. It shows a landscape at a particular time.

Mapping renamed landscapes​

Place names can provide another spatial history.

You can compare:

  • locally held ingoa wāhi
  • names on early survey plans
  • names on later topographic maps
  • current official names
  • names restored through Treaty settlement or other naming processes

Avoid describing a name as lost simply because it disappeared from a Crown map. It may have continued in local use.

See Who gets to name a place?.

Show uncertainty​

Historical geometries are often reconstructed.

Use fields such as:

  • source_type
  • source_ref
  • source_date
  • geometry_status
  • confidence
  • interpretation_note

Possible geometry statuses:

  • surveyed
  • digitised from plan
  • reconstructed
  • approximate
  • indicative

Do not draw a razor-sharp polygon around evidence that says only between these two rivers.

Keep Māori experience in the map​

A technically perfect transaction map can still become an administrative history of the Crown.

Where appropriate and authorised, connect the spatial change to:

  • access
  • kāinga
  • mahinga kai
  • marae
  • wāhi tūpuna
  • movement
  • economic use
  • environmental change
  • whānau experience

The purpose is not to decorate the transaction map with cultural points. It is to show why spatial change mattered to people.

A careful workflow​

  1. Define one historical question and period.
  2. Identify the relevant iwi, hapū, whānau and inquiry context.
  3. Build a source register before digitising heavily.
  4. Keep each legal or historical process separate.
  5. Digitise with source-specific confidence and dates.
  6. Compare sources rather than forcing agreement.
  7. Review with people who know the local history where appropriate.
  8. Produce an internal evidence map before a public narrative map.
  9. State what the map cannot prove.
  10. Preserve the source references with the GIS project.

Sources​

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