1874 New Zealand census

The 1874 New Zealand census was a population count taken in 1874. The population of New Zealand was 299,514, not including Māori. Census papers were delivered to households during February 1874, to be completed for the night of 1 March 1874. The census asked questions about people's age, sex, marital status, religion, place of birth, health and education. Additional questions were asked about land use and ownership and about farm animals and equipment.

A separate census of Māori was held around the same time, and the Māori population was estimated to be around 46,000, of whom 43,538 lived in the North Island. This included part-Māori people living as Māori.

The number of Chinese living in New Zealand was shown to have almost doubled from the previous census in 1871, from 2640 to 4816. Over 4000 of these worked on the gold fields as miners, sluicers or water-race cutters. Only two Chinese women were said to be living in the country: one in Otago and one in the Chatham Islands.

Birthplaces
The Registrar-General stated that 95% of the non-Māori population had British "allegiance". This was calculated by counting those with a British birthplace, British subjects born in foreign countries, foreign people naturalised in New Zealand, people with British names who had been born at sea, and people with no stated birthplace but a British name. In all, residents of New Zealand in 1874 came from 75 countries including Persia, the Barbary Coast, Greenland and New Guinea.

Māori population
The census of Māori people was conducted differently to the general census. Instead of delivering papers to each household and later collecting them, officers enquired about the population from reliable local Māori. The reasoning was that Māori had always been used to transmitting their history and pedigrees orally, so more accurate results would be obtained than by means of printed forms.

In each district enumerated, the number of male and female Māori over and under 15 was listed by tribe, hapū and locality. There were more males than females in every district except Raglan and Kawhia. The biggest difference was in Kaipara, where there were 20% more males than females. In some cases the enumerators had to estimate numbers, for example in Hawkes Bay south of the Tangio River, where the enumerator listed 71 hapū with a guess at the total population there. In the upper Wanganui River area, about 250 people were noted to be temporarily absent at Waikato and Waitara. The total Māori population was estimated to be 46,016 people.