While every attempt is made to represent the suburb boundaries as accurately as possible, Precisely is constrained to using what information is available at the time of data production. Suburbs and Localities New Zealand product is released annually.
Localities are a representation of an area where authoritative information does not dictate the definition of that known area. Recognised local place names have been used when naming localities. Where large urban localities have been sub-divided, but there is only one common local name, then the identifiers North, South, East, West and Central are used after the name. Other identifiers sometimes used after the name are City, University, Airport, Park and Hospital.
The following identifiers are not used within the locality name:
- CBD (Central Business District)
- Centre
- Upper
- Lower
Where no local place name is available then a recognised name such as a topographic feature or National Park has been used. In rural areas, local knowledge has sometimes resulted in the selection of a descriptive name, which effectively describes the area, for example Ashburton Lakes. The only abbreviations used are Mt. for Mount and St. for Saint.
A SEARCH_NAME field is created that appends an abbreviated Territorial Authority (TA) name to the locality name to aid in searches. Where a record is outside the TA boundaries (typically bays and islands), the nearest TA name has been assigned. The SEARCH_NAME values are not unique across the whole suburb table, but are unique if only records with type "SUBURB" or "LOCALITY" are considered (exclude bays and islands etc).