Usual residence five years ago areas

Usual residence five years ago is a person’s usual residence on 5 March 2013, which may be different to their current usual residence (6 March 2018). For the 2018 Census, this is not derived from a census question but by linking of 2018 Census respondents (usual residence in 2018) to their 2013 Census record (usual residence in 2013). A respondent is classified as being overseas five years ago if they arrived in New Zealand less than five years ago.

Usual residence five years ago is available as a variation for several geographies. These geographies are based on the standard classifications but have extra codes added: 'Overseas', 'Unable to match to 2013 Census', 'Not born 5 years ago', and 'No fixed abode'. The statistical area 2, statistical area 1, and meshblock classifications have the category 'overseas' broken down into the country previously lived in. The geographies that have a variation for usual residence five years ago are:

• Regional council
• Territorial authority (+ regional council codes)
• Statistical area 2 (+ regional council, territorial authority, and country codes)
• Statistical area 1 (+ country codes)
• Meshblock (+ country codes).

Note: the territorial authority and statistical area 2 classifications (linked above) are a combination of classifications that also include higher geographies to capture non-specific respondent address information (listed next to the link for each classification). The geographies that are added to the classification that have fewer digits than the normal code length are infilled with '9's' at the start of the code to make them the correct length e.g. the regional council code '02' (Auckland region) becomes '999902' (Auckland region) in the statistical area 2 classification (code length = 6 digits).