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Story: Kauri forest

The 10 largest living kauri

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The 10 largest living kauri

Kauri are among the largest and longest-living trees in the world. This table shows the size of the 10 largest living kauri in 1986. Most of them are in Northland forest, with two (Tānenui and Tairua) on the Coromandel Peninsula. Even larger specimens have been recorded in the past, but very few trees ever reached such giant proportions.

Using this item

Te Ara - The Encyclopedia of New Zealand

Source: Joanna Orwin, Kauri: witness to a nation’s history. Auckland: New Holland, 2004, p. 34

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How to cite this page

Joanna Orwin, Kauri forest – How and where kauri grows, Te Ara – the Encyclopedia of New Zealand, https://teara.govt.nz/en/diagram/10023/the-10-largest-living-kauri (accessed 4 June 2026).

Story by Joanna Orwin, published 1 March 2009.

Comments

Vivienne Harris
04 August 2022
There has been a lot of research etc gone on in the past forty odd years at least with and about the protection of those Kauri trees that remain. I understood tooo much activity in this area has a big impact on their root system etc. How much Tourist activity has gone on there since this was discovered.
Kerry Elt
03 March 2012
Fascinating tree, proud and majestic. What a pity so many have been destroyed, both by nature and mankind. I visited an old gum producing farm, where there was an old tree unearthed with a girth of some 14 meters, it had been buried millions of years ago by one the huge sunamies which covered the north island at that time. one would have thought that the tree would have been dead after such a period of time yet there was a young shoot growing out of the excavation. Wether the shoot was from the old buried tree or not I am not sure (I would certainly like to believe so) I have downloaded two of your pictures which I would like to keep for my own pleasure. Should you object I will delate them from my holiday photos. Thanks for the intriguing story Kerry Elt