Vehicle registration plates of New Zealand

In New Zealand, vehicle registration plates (usually called number plates) contain up to six alphanumeric characters, depending on the type of vehicle and the date of registration. Number plates display these characters on the back of powered vehicles and non-powered vehicles such as caravans and trailers authorised to travel on New Zealand roads. Most vehicles (i.e. cars, trucks, vans, etc.) are required to display plates on the front as well.

Private cars, taxis, and heavier road vehicles in New Zealand have number plates with up to six characters. From 1964 until 2001 these number plates had two letters followed by one to four numbers (format LLnnnn), the sequence having started with "AA100" and continuing through to "ZZ9989" chronologically (for example, XE3782 would have been issued in 1998). An observer could therefore ascertain the approximate date of first registration of a vehicle by means of the number plate.

By the end of 2000 this system had reached the end of the alphabet ("ZZ"). The series officially ended with plate "ZZ9989" - the sequence "ZZ999Ø" to "ZZ9999" had appeared as personalised plates years earlier. A new system began in April 2001, with three letters (starting with "AAA") followed by three numbers (format LLLnnn), with nnn starting at 100. Land Transport New Zealand also issued "AAA1ØØ" to "AAA1Ø3" as personalised plates, officially meaning that the first plate in the new series read "AAA1Ø4".

Starting with "CEA", the number ranges started with 1, as in the old system. The authorities issued this series according to the first two letters — the third letter and numbers did not necessarily get issued in sequence. As of June 2017^[update] the registration pattern had reached "KQ" followed by a third letter and one to three numbers (for example: "KQA123").

Unlike in many countries, observers cannot normally identify a location of registration by simply looking at the number-plate. One exception to this rule occurred when LLnnnn plates first appeared in 1964: most plates went to the regions in batches, starting with the "AA" series in Southland and moving progressively north. For some time one could reasonably infer that an "AF" plate hailed from Dunedin, an "AI" plate from South Canterbury, and so on. In some later instances issuers coded plates to the area of registration, such as in 1966 with the allocation of plates beginning with "CE" to the Wanganui-Manawatu region, in 1974-1976 with the allocation of plates beginning with "HB" to the Hawke's Bay region, in May 1989 with the allocation of plates beginning with "OG" to Wellington region, and in July 2000 with the allocation of plates beginning with "ZI" to Auckland region.

...
Wikipedia