[10] In 1987 Stokes and four colleagues published a "collective statement" on feminist geography in the New Zealand Geographer; Longhurst and Johnston provide a retrospective look at her work in this area.

[14] Stokes also played an important part in building up the map collection of the University of Waikato:[13] in 1964 she and Michael Selby transferred the New Zealand Geographic Society's collection to Waikato, she was the society's map librarian from 1966 to 1983,[5] and she frequently added to the library with purchases from her travels abroad.

Bedford also states that "her publications are renowned for the meticulous and innovative cartography", and that her skills in this area were put to good use in her service on the editorial committee for the New Zealand Historical Atlas (1991–1997).

[5][13] Stokes' research on the history of Tauranga County related closely to her work on an important tribunal case on the confiscation of land in the Tauranga area,[5] and her experience with the Ngāti Tahu and Ngāti Tūwharetoa helped guide her work with the Waitangi Tribunal on other cases involving geothermal resources.

During her tenure on the board, she helped guide it towards the restoration of indigenous names for places that had been renamed as part of the English colonisation of New Zealand.

[5][17] In 1990, the University of Waikato awarded Stokes a personal chair "in recognition of her outstanding contribution to research and teaching".

[5] In the 2000 New Year Honours, she was appointed a Dame Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit, for services to tertiary education and Māori.

[10] At that time, Garth Cant remarked that "no one within geography has made a more substantial and sustained contribution to the wholeness and wellbeing of this nation we call Aotearoa/New Zealand in the 1980s and 1990s than Dame Evelyn Stokes".

[10][20] On her death, Stokes was honoured with a tangi, a formal three-day Māori funeral ceremony, on Te Kohinga Mārama marae.