The Hauraki Plains are a geographical feature and non-administrative area (though Hauraki Plains County Council existed from 1920 to 1989 and a statistical Area Unit remains) located in the northern North Island of New Zealand, at the lower (northern) end of the Thames Valley. They are located 75 kilometres south-east of Auckland, at the foot of the Coromandel Peninsula and occupy the southern portion of a rift valley bounded on the north-west by the Hunua Ranges, to the east by the Coromandel and Kaimai ranges and the west by a series of undulating hills which separate the plains from the much larger plains of the Waikato River. Broadly, the northern and southern parts of the Hauraki Plains are administered by the Hauraki District and the Matamata-Piako District respectively. The alluvial plains have been built up by sediment deposited by the Piako and Waihou rivers, which flow north to reach the sea at the Firth of Thames, and earlier by the ancestral Waikato River. The resulting land is flat, peat-heavy, and partly swampy which has been converted into excellent land for dairy farming. Economically, the dairy farming is the leading primary industry, supported by other grassland farming. More recently, tourism in the Hauraki Plains region has been growing and the Hauraki Rail Trail, part of the New Zealand Cycle Trail, has been constructed in the Hauraki Plains. The largest town fully within the Plains is Ngatea, with a smaller settlement of Turua. The larger town of Paeroa is located on the eastern edge of the Hauraki Plains. While there is no defined geographical southern boundary to the Hauraki Plains, this is generally taken as being a line between the towns of Te Aroha and Morrinsville, approximately following State Highway 26. Demographics Three statistical areas cover the northern part of Hauraki Plains: Hauraki Plains North, Hauraki Plains East and Hauraki Plains South. They include Turua, Kaihere, Kerepehi, Pipiroa and Waitakaruru, and surround but do not include Ngatea. They cover and had an estimated population of as of with a population density of people per km2. These three statistical areas had a population of 4,053 at the 2018 New Zealand census, an increase of 243 people (6.4%) since the 2013 census, and an increase of 90 people (2.3%) since the 2006 census. There were 1,479 households, comprising 2,067 males and 1,986 females, giving a sex ratio of 1.04 males per female, with 927