About Ruapehu
About the Living in Ruapehu Portal
The Living in Ruapehu Portal is a NZ first that brings together a wide range of unique data sets with community narratives to provide new insights and a clearer understanding of the issues affecting community wellbeing in Ruapehu.
Before now policy and priority decisions often needed to rely on dated data with no real connection with people's actual experience of life.
We now have the ability to bring together economic activity data such as spending and GDP with insights into community wellbeing and the barriers to improving it.
The result are deeper insights and a clearer understanding of the issues affecting community wellbeing.
Local and central government and partner organisations can now agree action points, funding criteria, and better target limited resources on where it can best improve community wellbeing.
Importantly we can now measure our progress in lifting people's quality of life and reporting on the things that people care about, such as the environment, and the quality of social connection.
By merging timely hard data with people's actual lived experience the Living in Ruapehu portal provides new insights and an exciting new model for maximising wellbeing and prosperity.
About the Ruapehu District
Ruapehu is one of New Zealand's largest districts by land area but with one of the smallest permanent population counts made up of many small, diverse and geographically spread out rural communities.
It has an area of 6,730 square kilometers and a stable resident population of around 13,000 but this increases dramatically with visitor numbers.
The district is landlocked, and contains the western half of the Tongariro National Park, a dual World Heritage location, including most of Mount Ruapehu and the western sides of Mount Ngāuruhoe and Mount Tongariro, as well as part of the Whanganui National Park. The district is also home to the world famous Raurimu Spiral on the North Island Main Trunk railway line.
The Ruapehu District offers unlimited opportunities as a region in which to live, work or visit.
Blessed with spectacular scenery, the Ruapehu District has a magnificent range of attractions and things to do and, as such, offers an unparalleled lifestyle.
The Ruapehu District has a diversity of small communities each quaintly unique and each with their own individual charm. Ruapehu's historic towns & villages are steeped in pre-European and colonial history and provide access to a multitude of nature based and adrenaline fueled activities the District has to offer.
In the north of the District lies Taumarunui at the confluence of the Whanganui and Ongarue Rivers and Ruapehu's largest township. In the center of the district is National Park Village which sits next to the World Heritage Tongariro National Park and Whakapapa Village which sits within the National Park at the base of Mt Ruapehu on the northern side.
In the south sits Waiouru the southern gateway to Ruapehu and home to a large army base and the National Army Museum. Nearby Ohakune sits at the base of the western side of Mt Ruapehu and access to the Tūroa ski field. Neighbouring is historic Raetihi established in 1893 and the smaller community of Pipiriki on the banks of the Whanganui River. The southern section of the infamous Desert Road section of State Highway 1 runs through the east of the district, from Waiouru to Rangipo.
Ruapehu's towns and villages offer amazing lifestyle opportunities and are being discovered by people seeking relief from the pressures of big city life.
Ruapehu has well developed farming, forestry, manufacturing and visitor industries, offering many employment and investment opportunities. The local communities are extremely entrepreneurial and, along with Council, are focused on achieving and maintaining sustainable development within the District.
