The final count

File under: demographics, census, Wellington

The first batch of official census data is now out. The detailed geographic data won't be out for another month or so, so I can't yet update my popular sexual geodemographic posts about toyboys and sugar daddies to guide those who might be worried about the continuing man drought. What we do have at a reasonably detailed level is simple population and dwelling counts, so I can update my Wellington City population growth post that I based upon May's provisional counts. It'll take a little while to update the map (some of the area unit names have changed, so I have to manually match them up to track the changes), but in the meantime here are some key updates and corrections.

The overall census night population of Wellington City grew by 10.8%, nearly 1700 people more than the provisional counts suggested. The "usually resident" count grew by only 9.5%, so this suggests an increase in the number of tourists and other visitors. In general for these analyses, I stick with the census night counts, since from an urbanist's perspective I'm interested in the number of people present in the city rather than where they usually live. Both numbers are higher than the average growth for New Zealand as a whole (7.8%).

I was a originally puzzled by an apparent drop in the population of Berhampore and Awarua, but the final data confirm my suspicion that they were undercounted, and they actually grew by 10.2% and 0.6% respectively. Intriguingly, as well as Awarua, many of the other area units along the Johnsonville line were undercounted, by a total of over 500. Hmmm...

Only a few places were significantly over-counted in the provisional data. The biggest overcount was in Lambton, by 279 people. However, this was more than made up for by undercounts in neighbouring inner-city area units (perhaps the borders were slightly off in the provisional data?), and the initial estimate of 6,500 extra people in the CBD and city fringe was actually 400 too low. The percentage census night increase for Lambton and Te Aro was over 45%, and the city and fringe increase was over 26%. That helps explain the continuing growth in the inner-city hospitality industry.