Singletown NZ: Where in New Zealand do the most single people live?

Arise, North Dunedin.

Your reputation as a hedonist's haven can be crowned.

Otago University student centres take three of the top four spots in a new ranking of the parts of New Zealand with the highest proportions of single people.

It's not all pub crawls and random hook ups in the south, however. Outside of the southern student hotspots, the North Island dominates the list of areas with the highest proportions of single people.

The information about where single people live has been published as the first part of Singletown, a week-long series on stuff.co.nz looking at single life in New Zealand.

READ MORE:
* Singletown NZ: Full coverage
* Where single men outnumber single women - and vice versa
* Where Auckland's eligibles converge
* Is Hamilton in a man drought?
* Finding love at 50 - in the Far North

As well as identifying where single people are heaviest on the ground, data and maps on the places where single men outnumber single women - and vice versa - has also been published. This data also shows a north/south divide with southern areas typically well-endowed with single men and man drought conditions most severe in places like Kapiti, Tauranga, Napier, Whanganui and Whangarei.

FLYING SOLO

The places with the highest rates of single people are almost always urban and young.

The Scarfie capital, Dunedin, fulfills its reputation as a party town (when exams are over, of course). Otago University (86.2 per cent) and North Dunedin (83.7 per cent) have the first and second highest proportion of single people in the country. An area defined as Stuart Street-Frederick Street, which is dominated by Dunedin student flats, is ranked fourth.

The student centres of Palmerston North (Massey University, 77.6 per cent), Auckland (Grafton East, 63.7 per cent and Grafton West, 62.3 per cent), Hamilton (University, 62.7 per cent) and Christchurch (Upper Riccarton, 62.1 per cent) all make the top 10 single towns. Wellington's trendy Aro Street-Nairn Street area (62.9 per cent) also scores highly.

An oddity in the top 10 for single people is West Invercargill. It has a median age more than double most of the others in the top 10 but a healthy two-thirds of the population that's single. Its population (126) is relatively small, however, and its high median age (54.2) suggests a number of widows and widowers live in the area.

ALL COUPLED UP

A low proportion of single people is typically associated with relatively lowly populated places. In the ten spots with the lowest proportion of single people, only Pegasus, in Christchurch, has more than 1000 people.

The median age in the places with the lowest proportions of single people tends to be higher - but not a lot higher - than the country overall.

Fairhall, a small town just outside of Blenheim, has the lowest proportion (12.3 per cent) of singletons in New Zealand. It has a high median age of 52 and a small population of 381. Others with low rates of singles but a more middling median age, like Jacks Point, in Queenstown (15.5 per cent), Pegasus (16.5 per cent) and Charlton, near Gore (17.6 per cent), likely reflect the high proportion of families in those areas.

BIGGER PICTURE

The analysis above is based on geographical area units, as defined by Statistics NZ when they carried out the latest census.

Instead of the 2016 small area units, it's also possible to look at the data based on larger geographic blocks by breaking the country into 66 bigger territories.

Using this broader measure, the South Island again stands out for its lack of single people.

Central Otago (26.6 per cent), Southland (27.1 per cent) and Hurunui (27.5 per cent) have the lowest proportions of single people. Other South Island territories take up the next seven places for the lowest proportions of single people.

At the opposite end of the scale, North Dunedin tips the scale in favour of Dunedin City (43.3 per cent) as the territory with the highest proportion of singles. Student-heavy Palmerston North (41.7 per cent), Hamilton City (41.4 per cent), Wellington City (40.9 per cent) and Whanganui District (40.3 per cent) follow.

Besides Dunedin City, there are only three other South Island territories (Christchurch City, Invercargill City and Nelson City) in the top 30 territories for single people.

WHAT'S SINGLETOWN?

Single life can be as much fun to talk and read about as it is to practice.

But it can also be a serious social issue. Where single people converge (and where they don't) goes a long way to defining a community.

In our Singletown series, we'll be mixing the fun and flippant with the serious and scientific.

Every day, until this Sunday, we'll be adding more maps, videos, a quiz, news and feature stories all about single life in New Zealand.  This will include closer looks at the singles scene in many different parts of the country, starting today in northern parts of the country like Kerikeri, Auckland and Hamilton. There will be more from our journalists in those parts of the countries and much more from across the lower half of the North Island and the South Island, too.

We're also calling for your stories about single life through our Stuff Nation assignment, launched today.

There will be stories and information for everyone. Wherever you live, whether you're single or coupled, gay or straight, there will be something for you in the Singletown series.

ABOUT THE DATA

The latest census, carried out in March 2013, provided a rich vein of information about single life in New Zealand.

However, it is not without its flaws.

People will have moved and relationship status changed since March 2013.

It's also important to note that people were only counted as single or partnered if they volunteered that information. Well over a million people were happy to state that they were single, but a significant minority of about 237,000 people preferred not to say what their relationship status was.