How thick on the ground are New Zealand’s liquor outlets?
Every active alcohol licence in the country, mapped against population. The active national register lists 11,476 licences across 67 territorial authorities. Toggle the view to see retail bottle stores, cellar-door producers, on-licence venues, and clubs side by side.
Show
Measure
Off-licences per 1,000
What the map is showing
The colour scale is a quantile banding — TAs are split into five equal-sized groups so the darkest band always contains the most-supplied 20%. Click any council to lock its detail card. Toggle between rate per 1,000 residents and absolute total to see how density and population pull in opposite directions for the big cities.
Categories are grouped from the ARLA Licence Type / Category fields:
- Retail = Bottle Store + Supermarket + Grocery Store. The everyday bottle-buying surface.
- Producer = Wine Maker + Brewer + Distillery. Cellar doors / tasting rooms.
- On-licences = bars, restaurants, hotels and the like.
- Clubs = RSAs, sports and social clubs.
Caveats. Two known data quirks. Palmerston North City lists only one off-licence in the national register — most appear to be filed under the neighbouring Manawatū DLC. Gore District lists zero retail off-licences, almost certainly a Mataura Licensing Trust artefact (Trust outlets are recorded under Southland DLC). Both will sort out as the register is reissued, but for this snapshot the right way to read the map is by region rather than by individual council.