The canopy
Every street and park tree the council counts, 131,940 of them standing, 2,874 marked veteran, 4,538 carrying a protection the district plan or a consent put there. And the register keeps the other half of the story: 50,861 records for the trees it felled, the ghost canopy, the kerbside gaps the file still remembers.
The notable ones, drawn
The 6,139 records the register marks out, the 2,874 veterans drawn bold, the protected trees fine. The other 125,801 standing trees are a pin apiece in the record; the canopy by suburb sits on each suburb’s page.
What the city is made of
The twenty-five commonest names on the register, the cherries and oaks of the garden city beside the kōwhai, tōtara and tī kōuka that were here first.
By the register’s age class
Where the canopy stands
The 101 suburbs the register counts trees in, ranked, Christchurch Central City leads with 12,454 on the file. Every suburb’s own count sits on its page.
- Christchurch Central City12,454 on the register · 584 veterans · 3,889 remembered felled
- Halswell9,177 on the register · 153 veterans · 1,595 remembered felled
- Burnside4,877 on the register · 83 veterans · 1,800 remembered felled
- Avonhead4,777 on the register · 16 veterans · 2,805 remembered felled
- Wigram4,235 on the register · 1 veteran · 880 remembered felled
- Parklands3,120 on the register · 11 veterans · 1,609 remembered felled
- Woolston2,728 on the register · 31 veterans · 1,229 remembered felled
- Redwood2,688 on the register · 7 veterans · 1,200 remembered felled
- Casebrook2,599 on the register · 4 veterans · 672 remembered felled
- Belfast2,571 on the register · 29 veterans · 620 remembered felled
The biggest on the books
- Oriental Plane (orientalis)40 m through · 12 m tall · crown 7 m · veteran · the ground →
- Macrocarpa (macrocarpa)5 m through · 26 m tall · crown 23 m · veteran · the ground →
- Macrocarpa (macrocarpa)4 m through · 27 m tall · crown 25 m · veteran · the ground →
- Cabbage tree (australis)3.86 m through · 10.2 m tall · crown 9.35 m · district plan significant · the ground →
- Irish Yew (baccata)3.85 m through · 14.7 m tall · crown 14.5 m · district plan significant · the ground →
- Alpine ash (delegatensis)3.71 m through · 34.5 m tall · crown 33.75 m · district plan · the ground →
- Crack Willow (fragilis)3.2 m through · 14.3 m tall · crown 22 m · veteran · the ground →
- London Plane (acerifolia)3 m through · 26.2 m tall · crown 24 m · veteran · the ground →
Questions, answered briefly
The council’s tree register, every street and park tree it counts, 131,940 of them standing, filed with species, height and spread. Most are council trees on berms and in parks. The commonest names on the register are kowhai, yoshino cherry, manna ash.
The register’s own age class, the 2,874 trees marked Veteran are the city’s oldest residents, the big oaks and cedars and macrocarpas that were standing before the streets around them were laid out. The register does not know most trees' true ages, its planting dates bottom out at 1970, so veteran is a judgement of size and form, not a birth certificate.
The register keeps the records of the trees it felled: 50,861 entries marked removed or stump. A removed record is where the file says a tree came down, the kerbside gap, the park that lost its elm. It is the register’s memory, not a promise nothing stands there now: a replacement planted last year would be a new record.
4,538 records carry a protection, a district plan listing, a resource consent condition, a subdivision covenant. A protected tree cannot be felled or heavily pruned without the council’s say; the strongest listings (District Plan Significant) are the city’s landmark trees, many of them on private land.
The record behind this
Christchurch City Council’s open data, the Tree service’s street and park tree inventory. A record is the file’s word on what stands or stood, not a fresh survey; a removed record marks where the file says a tree came down. The canopy by suburb sits on each suburb’s page; a point’s own neighbours are at /before; the parks the big trees stand in are at /parks; and the other tree record, the problems residents file about them, is counted at /problems/trees.
This page as markdown: /trees.md · the record as data: /trees.json · /trees.geojson · on the live map: /map?layer=trees.