They constitute one of New Zealand's most sizeable ethnic minorities.
In the 2013 census, 60,336 New Zealanders identified themselves as being of Tongan ethnicity with 22,413 stating that they were born in Tonga.
Some of the increase between the 2013 and 2018 census was due to Statistics New Zealand adding ethnicity data from other sources (previous censuses, administrative data, and imputation) to the 2018 census data to reduce the number of non-responses.
The Waitaki District has the highest concentration of Tongan peoples outside of Auckland at 2.4%.
The Chatham Islands and the Kaikōura District had the lowest concentrations, recording no Tongan people in their respective areas.