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Pātaka Whenua

Pātaka Whenua is the current Māori Land Court online portal. It replaced Māori Land Online. Te Puni Kōkiri describes it as the definitive online source of information relating to Māori land held in the court's electronic record.

You do not need an account for ordinary court-record searching. Registration adds services such as saved searches, reports, enquiries and applications.

Depending on the record, Pātaka Whenua can expose:

  • Māori land blocks and their map location
  • block details and identifiers
  • current ownership records held by the court
  • trustees and management structures
  • memorial information
  • court minutes and judgments
  • title orders
  • survey plans and related documents
  • current court applications associated with land
  • historical ownership and succession information where digitised

The portal is a documentary record as well as a map. For research, the documents can be more important than the polygon shown on screen.

A useful search sequence​

  1. Start with the block name if you know it.
  2. Add the Māori Land Court district when the name is common or ambiguous.
  3. If the block name is uncertain, search spelling variants and nearby known blocks.
  4. Open the block record and note its identifiers exactly.
  5. Inspect memorials, orders, minutes and plans that explain changes to the block.
  6. Record document references before moving into GIS.
  7. Compare the present map context with LINZ cadastral parcels rather than assuming they are identical.

LINZ notes that the block name is often the most useful starting identifier and that the same block name can occur in more than one Māori Land Court district.

What to record for GIS​

A small research table is enough:

block_name
court_district
block_identifier
record_type
record_reference
record_date
source_url_or_reference
location_status
notes
checked_date

Keep the wording of the source. If a historic record uses a spelling different from the current court record, retain both rather than overwriting one.

Pātaka and Māori land status​

Pātaka Whenua is the correct first place to check Māori Land Court information, but LINZ cautions that not all Māori land is currently registered in a way that makes every status question conclusive through an online search. A Record of Title may also contain a Māori land indication without settling every status question. Where the record itself is inconclusive, the Māori Land Court is the source to pursue further.

For GIS this means a missing search result is not evidence that a place has no Māori land history.

Moving from the record to a map​

Continue with From a court record to a map. If the question is specifically about a historical name or partition, use Research an old block name.

Official guidance:

Last reviewed: 26 August 2026

Where Pātaka Whenua fits​

Pātaka Whenua is particularly useful for whenua Māori owners, trusts, hapū and researchers starting from a block name, title or court record before moving into GIS. Pair it with block, parcel and title and the investigating whenua workflow.

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