Mataura Island is a fertile district ten miles from Wyndham and Edendale, four miles from Pine Bush, and six miles from Glenham. It forms part of the Waihopai riding of the county of Southland, and is in the electoral district of Mataura. The population of the island, at the census of 1901, was eighty-nine, and a small piece of land, in the Toetoes riding of the same county, opposite Mataura Island, had a population of forty. There is a public school in the district, with an average attendance of forty; and a locally owned cheese factory, known as the Island Dairy Factory, is in full operation. There has been a post office at Mataura page 1073 Island since 1895, and telephone connection was established two years later. There is also a Presbyterian church, which was erected in 1903. Mataura Island is well watered by the grand river from which it derives its name.