Visit Tokoroa

Tokoroa is one of the most recent towns in New Zealand history. It was first developed around 1925 by the Matarawa land company as a potential farming area followed by residential development in 1948.

Early pioneer farming family history details hardship for those whom first farmed Tokoroa as the soil had serious deficiencies that became known as "bush sickness" later found to be cobalt deficiency.

Tokoroa was then developed as a residential satellite for Kinleith Mill, New Zealand Forest Products Limited's integrated timber, pulp and paper mill at Kinleith, 8 km south of Tokoroa. In 1948 the town boasted a population of 1,100. By the time NZFP began to downscale its operations at Kinleith in the 1980s, Tokoroa had a population of 18,000 - just 2,000 below the number necessary to be proclaimed a city. In recent years however, the downscaling at Kinleith and in other industries has resulted in a drop in population, and only 13,600 people resided in Tokoroa as of 2006.

Location

Surrounding the township are many dairy farms and plantation forests. There are many scenic reserves around the town - the artificial lake 'Moana-Nui' (formed by damming the Matarawa Stream) lies within a popular recreational park.

The town's location in the centre of the central North Island and its developed transportation network provide plenty of potential for warehousing and distribution. Tokoroa lies in the centre of a triangle made up of the popular tourism destinations of Rotorua, Waitomo and Taupo. There are about forty five lakes within a forty-five-minute drive of Tokoroa.

One can travel to four major centres, each less than a one hour drive:
Hamilton (north north west)
Tauranga (north east)
Rotorua (south east east)
Taupo (south)

Township

As well as the central business district, the township is made up of many subdivisions, each built in different stages of the Kinleith complex's development. These subdivisions are:
Parkdale
Paraonui
Papanui
Matarawa
Aotea
Strathmore
Amisfield

Many of the street names of the town were named by the first managing director of N.Z. Forest Products Ltd.(builders of the Kinleith mill), Sir David Henry (1888-1963), after places near his home town of Edinburgh, in Scotland. David Henry Primary School is a key example of him and his namesaking.

Demographics

Tokoroa is a town of over 13,600 people, with around 1.5 million people - 40% of New Zealand's total population - living within a 250 km (155 mi) radius.

Tokoroa is a multicultural town, with about 35% of the population being Maori and another 20% from the Pacific Islands (mainly the Cook Islands). The remaining 45% of the population is made up mainly by NZ European people. Tokoroa has New Zealand's largest Pacific Island community outside of Auckland and Wellington.

Economy

The economic lifeblood of Tokoroa is forestry, centred on the nearby Kinleith Mill; and dairy farming. In 1995, Fonterra built the southern hemisphere's largest cheese factory in Lichfield, some 5 km north of the town. Recently, due to an increase in dairy prices, large amounts of previously forested land are being converted into farmland.

The main rural activities of the district are sheep and dairying. Forestry is still however the most important primary industry. Timber is milled and processed at Kinleith, with many of the Kinleith workers living in Tokoroa. Tokoroa is a marketing and servicing centre with associated industries. These include the manufacture of cheese, wooden boxes, joinery, sawmilling, general engineering, and the quarrying of building stone.

Although Tokoroa's economy primarily tends to revolve around timber and farming, many large retail companies have begun investing in Tokoroa