Statistics New Zealand is a government department. The census information is an important part of their job but they also give us a lot of information about our country, people and economy at other times. You might like to look at these two web sites.
Facts. This gives you a map of NZ with some pictures on it. Hold the mouse over the pictures and it tells you some information about that area. For example, if you hold your mouse over the signpost saying Beach, on the West Coast of the South Island, you will see that people living there are close to the coast but also 65% of Kiwis in 2006 lived within 5km of the coast. Another fact is that Auckland has 2757 cafes and restaurants while Wellington has only 810.
Every year, Stats New Zealand prints a small booklet of useful information about New Zealand. You can ask them to send you a copy or you can find it on the website New Zealand in Profile. You can find the top 10 imports and exports and our top 5 trading countries. You can see that we have 31.2 million sheep and 6.5 million dairy cows.
Vocabulary
• statistics (stats) – mathematics which organises data from surveys etc
• census – see February 19th 2013
• profile – summary of main ideas
• dairy cows give milk