We present the results of using seismic waveform data to show that the elliptical nature of isoseismal distributions in New Zealand is related to regional structural trends. The data also suggest that there are regional and azimuthal variations in the attenuation of coda waves, which may need to be considered in ground motion attenuation relations. We stacked over 20,000 waveforms from the New Zealand seismographic network. The data were filtered, normalized and stacked. Noisy or clipped records were down-weighted or removed. We also treated dense networks as a single station and generated a single stack for these networks. Stacks of shallow earthquake sources are presented by region and azimuth. Variations in coda length throughout New Zealand suggest regions of high scattering. Strong azimuthal dependence in the coda is observed for non-volcanic zone stations. NE-SW waveform stacks, which follow the strike of the subduction zone, contain significantly longer codas than those with NW-SE raypaths. Long coda trains are also observed in the volcanic and geothermal zones yet there is little or no apparent azimuthal variation. These coda are particularly strong throughout the records which explains the difficulty analysts have had in picking S waves.