[6] After a public consultation, the board officially named it North Island or Te Ika-a-Māui in October 2013.

According to Māori mythology, the North and South Islands of New Zealand arose through the actions of the demigod Māui.

During Captain James Cook's voyage between 1769 and 1770, Tahitian navigator Tupaia accompanied the circumnavigation of New Zealand.

The maps described the North Island as "Ea Heinom Auwe" and "Aeheinomowe", which recognises the "Fish of Māui" element.

Use of Aotearoa to describe the North Island fell out of favour in the early 20th century, and it is now a collective Māori name for New Zealand as a whole.

[14] During this period, most of the North Island was covered in thorn scrubland and forest, while the modern-day Northland Peninsula was a subtropical rainforest.

[18] At the 2023 census, 63.1% of North Islanders identified as European (Pākehā), 19.8% as Māori, 10.6% as Pacific peoples, 19.3% as Asian, 1.9% as Middle Eastern/Latin American/African, and 1.1% as other ethnicities.

The most common foreign countries of birth were England (15.4% of overseas-born residents), Mainland China (11.3%), India (10.1%), South Africa (5.9%), Australia (5.5%) and Samoa (5.3%).

Organised around geographical areas of varying population sizes, they are not coterminous with the Local Government Regions.