New Zealand's population is booming, census figures show, and the Salvation Army is concerned housing is not keeping up - but Winston Peters is suggesting there is hope.

The first details from last year's troubled 2018 Census have revealed the population increased 457,707 to 4.69 million over the five years to 2018.

That's 2.1 percent a year since 2013 - the largest growth in a census period.

Much of the growth is driven by immigration. Net migration was 59,000 people over the last seven-year Census period, but in the five years up to Census 2018, it was 259,000 people.

But all this growth is raising questions about how we're coping with such a rapidly increasing population.

Papakura is the fastest-growing part of Auckland, where the population increased by 26 percent in the five years to 2018. New homes are going in, but infrastructure work is struggling to match such a population surge.

The overall population of New Zealand grew 10.8 percent since the last Census. Most of the growth is in the north of the North Island and on the outskirts of Auckland.

The Salvation Army says housing is just not keeping up.

"A lot of people we're seeing are still struggling to get the kind of housing they need," the Salvation Army's Lieut-Colonel Ian Hutson told Newshub.

"What we've seen is people going without food, insecure housing, and people having to move around because they can't find the right thing."