New Zealand's ethnic groups continue to increase in numbers, and the latest report from Statistics New Zealand indicates that there are more ethnic groups now that countries in the world.

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However, some ethnic groups have larger numbers than others such as the Chinese and Indians who now comprise the five largest groups in the country, including Europeans, Maoris and Samoans. While outside the top 5, Filipinos also logged a considerable increase since the last census in 2006.

Chinese population went up 16 per cent to 171,000, Indian 48 per cent to 155,000 and Filipino more than doubled to 40,000.

Pacific ethnic groups also logged significant increases - the Samoans by 10 per cent to 144,000, Cook Island Maoris by 7 per cent to 62,000 and Tongans by almost 20 per cent to 60,000.

On the extreme end, the smallest ethnic groups by size of members are Greenlanders, Sardinians and Latin American Creoles.

Sarah Minson, general manager of the 2013 census, said that the number of ethnicities in the country surpassing the number of countries in the world is an indicator of how diverse New Zealand is and how it will become more diverse in the future.

As a result of the growing ethnic population, New Zealand's resident headcount went up 5 per cent to 4.24 million in 2013 from 2006.

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