It is also called Aotearoa or the «Land of the Long White Cloud» in the language of the Maori (rhymes with «dowry»), the Polynesian people who settled the islands four centuries before the first Europeans arrived. New Zealand is an island country located in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. The country comprises two main islands—the North and the South Island—and a number of small islands, some of them hundreds of miles from the main group. New Zealand, island country in the South Pacific Ocean, the southwesternmost part of Polynesia. New Zealand’s population today is concentrated to the north of the country, with around 76.4% of the population living in the North Island and 23.6% in the South Island as of June 2025. New Zealand conservationists have pioneered several methods to help threatened wildlife recover, including island sanctuaries, pest control, wildlife translocation, fostering, and ecological restoration of islands and other protected areas.
I learned about New Zealand mainly in the films of Lord of the Rings. The South Island is a true delight, and we will definitely be back to visit. The Adventure Capital of New Zealand is Queenstown. The main ski field in the North Island is Mt Ruapehu, and off season, the town of Ohakune is a great hub for Mountain Biking and hiking.
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New Zealand has a highly varied terrain with mountain ranges and hill country dominating the landscape. What type of government does New Zealand have? What is the population of New Zealand? Immigration from other areas—Asia, Africa, and eastern Europe—has also made a mark, and New Zealand culture today reflects these many influences. New Zealand also has a unique array of vegetation and animal life, much of which developed during the country’s prolonged isolation.
The colony gained a representative government in 1852, and the first Parliament met in 1854. These conflicts, mainly in the North Island, saw thousands of imperial troops and the Royal Navy come to New Zealand and became known as the New Zealand Wars. New Zealand was administered as a dependency of the Colony of New South Wales until becoming a separate Crown colony, the Colony of New Zealand, on 3 May 1841. In 1835, following an announcement of impending French settlement by Charles de Thierry, the nebulous United Tribes of New Zealand sent a Declaration of Independence to King William IV of the United Kingdom asking for protection. The Māori population declined to around 40% of its pre-contact level during the 19th century; introduced diseases were the major factor. Following Cook, New Zealand was visited by numerous European and North American whaling, sealing, and trading ships.
New Zealand Economy
New Zealand art and craft has gradually achieved an international audience, with exhibitions in the Venice Biennale in 2001 and the «Paradise Now» exhibition in New York in 2004. Certain items of popular culture thought to be unique to New Zealand are called «Kiwiana». In the 1960s, as tertiary education became more available, and cities expanded urban culture began to dominate, but rural imagery and themes are common in New Zealand’s art, literature and media. From the early 20th century until the late 1960s, Māori culture was suppressed by the attempted assimilation of Māori into British New Zealanders. More recently, American, Australian, Asian and other European cultures have exerted influence on New Zealand.
- The national rugby team, the All Blacks, has the best winning record of any national team in the world, including being the inaugural winner of the 1987 Rugby Union World Cup.
- New Zealand is heavily dependent on international trade, particularly in agricultural products.
- If thrillseeking is what you are after there’s options galore in every corner of the country.
- Primary export industries are agriculture (sheep, cattle, dairy), horticulture (apples, kiwifruit), fishing, and forestry.
- Because of its far-flung outlying islands and long coastline, the country has extensive marine resources.
- In 1921, the country’s median centre of population was in the Tasman Sea west of Levin in Manawatū-Whanganui; by 2017, it had moved 280 km (170 mi) north to near Kawhia in Waikato.
- Similarly the Māori and English names for the whole country are sometimes used together (Aotearoa New Zealand); however, this has no official recognition.
While officially the Chatham Islands Council is not a unitary authority, it undertakes many functions of a regional council. The territorial authorities consist of 13 city councils, 53 district councils, and the Chatham Islands Council. In 1989, the government reorganised local government into the current two-tier structure of regional councils and territorial authorities. Since 1876, various councils have administered local areas under legislation determined by the central government.
Europeans did not revisit New Zealand until 1769, when British explorer James Cook mapped almost the entire coastline. The existence of a single great fleet that settled New Zealand has since been superseded by the belief that the majority of settlement was a planned and deliberate event that occurred over several decades. The New Zealand Geographic Board discovered in 2009 that the names of the North Island and South Island had never been formalised, and names and alternative names were formalised in 2013. In 1834, a document written in Māori, «He Wakaputanga o te Rangatiratanga o Nu Tireni», was translated into English and became the Declaration of the Independence of New Zealand. The Realm of New Zealand also includes Tokelau (a dependent territory); the Cook Islands and Niue (self-governing states in free association with New Zealand); and the Ross Dependency, which is New Zealand’s territorial claim in Antarctica.
New Zealand is heavily dependent on international trade, particularly in agricultural products. Since 1984, successive governments engaged in major macroeconomic restructuring (known first as Rogernomics and then Ruthanasia), rapidly transforming New Zealand from a protectionist and highly regulated economy to a liberalised free-trade economy. According to the 2024 Global Peace Index, New Zealand is betista casino login the 4th most peaceful country in the world. New Zealand is involved in the Pacific Islands Forum, the Pacific Community, Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation, and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations Regional Forum (including the East Asia Summit). A large proportion of New Zealand’s aid goes to these countries, and many Pacific people migrate to New Zealand for employment. In 2013update there were about 650,000 New Zealand citizens living in Australia, which is equivalent to 15% of the population of New Zealand.
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Christianity is the predominant religion in New Zealand, although nearly 40 percent of the population has no religious affiliation. Successive government policies on the relationship between Maori and non-Maori people have worsened race relations. English and Maori are the two official languages, although most visitors would find New Zealand exclusively an English-speaking country. A result of Pacific Island immigration is that South Auckland has become the world’s largest Polynesian city. About 70 percent of New Zealand’s population is of European descent, mostly English, Scottish, Welsh, Irish, and Dutch. New Zealand once had about 20 times more sheep than people; by 2001 there were only 12 times as many.
The New Zealand Parliament cannot pass legislation for these countries, but with their consent can act on behalf of them in foreign affairs and defence. The Cook Islands and Niue are self-governing states in free association with New Zealand. The Realm of New Zealand, one of 15 Commonwealth realms, is the entire area over which the king or queen of New Zealand is sovereign and comprises New Zealand, Tokelau, the Ross Dependency, the Cook Islands, and Niue.
A 2017 human rights report by the United States Department of State noted that the New Zealand government generally respected the rights of individuals, but voiced concerns regarding the social status of the Māori population. New Zealand’s geographic isolation for 80 million years and island biogeography has influenced evolution of the country’s species of animals, fungi and plants. Snowfall is common in the eastern and southern parts of the South Island and mountain areas across the country.
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- Christians are the single largest religious group, forming 32.3% of the population, compared to 36.5% in 2018.
- The All Blacks perform a traditional Maori war dance, or haka, before the start of international matches.
- You can still ask artists for porn of your avatar, but do not make a post of it.
- New Zealand is a remote land—one of the last sizable territories suitable for habitation to be populated and settled—and lies more than 1,000 miles (1,600 km) southeast of Australia, its nearest neighbour.
- The North Island also has mountain ranges, and four volcanic peaks, including Mt. Ruapehu, which has been active (but not dangerous) since September 1995.
He named that area Murderers’ Bay, and called the country Staten Landt. DNA mapping of their Maori descendants indicates links to the indigenous people of Taiwan. The relative proximity of New Zealand to Antarctica has made South Island a gateway of sorts for scientific expeditions and tourist excursions to the icebound continent. Over 75 percent of the forest cover has been burnt or felled, and the land converted into pasture. It also has a diverse range of birds, including the flightless moa (now extinct) and the kiwi, the kakapo, and the takahē, all of which are endangered. Evergreens such as the giant kauri and southern beech dominate the forests.
About 82% of New Zealand’s indigenous vascular plants are endemic, covering 1,944 species across 65 genera. Physical isolation has caused biological isolation, resulting in a dynamic evolutionary ecology with examples of distinctive plants and animals as well as populations of widespread species. Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch all receive a yearly average of more than 2,000 hours of sunshine. Of the seven largest cities, Christchurch is the driest, receiving on average only 618 millimetres (24.3 in) of rain per year. Conditions vary sharply across regions, from extremely wet on the West Coast of the South Island to semi-arid in Central Otago and the Mackenzie Basin of inland Canterbury and subtropical in Northland.
Ethnicity and immigration
Because of its long isolation from the rest of the world, New Zealand has unique flora. The tallest peak on North Island is Mount Ruapehu (2,797 m), an active, cone-shaped volcano. South Island is dominated by the Southern Alps, the highest peak of which is Aoraki/Mount Cook, at 3,754 m. New Zealand aligned itself with the allied nations in World War I, World War II, and the Korean War. Maori legends describe South Island as a canoe and North Island as a fish.
In July 2023, New Zealand and the European Union entered into the EU–New Zealand Free Trade Agreement, which eliminated tariffs on several goods traded between the two regions. New Zealand’s main trading partners, as at June 2018update, are China (NZ$27.8b), Australia ($26.2b), the European Union ($22.9b), the United States ($17.6b), and Japan ($8.4b). Poverty has a disproportionately high effect in ethnic-minority households, with a quarter (23.3%) of Māori children and almost a third (28.6%) of Pacific Islander children living in poverty as of 2020update. Nearly one-quarter of highly skilled workers live overseas, mostly in Australia and Britain, which is the largest proportion from any developed nation. New Zealand has experienced a series of «brain drains» since the 1970s that still continue today. However, the 2008 financial crisis had a major effect on New Zealand, with the GDP shrinking for five consecutive quarters, the longest recession in over thirty years, and unemployment rising back to 7% in late 2009.
New Zealand participated at the Summer Olympics in 1908 and 1912 as a joint team with Australia, before first participating on its own in 1920. The Polynesian sport of waka ama racing has experienced a resurgence of interest in New Zealand since the 1980s. New Zealand is known for its extreme sports, adventure tourism and strong mountaineering tradition, as seen in the success of notable New Zealander Sir Edmund Hillary summiting Mount Everest first. Golf, netball, tennis and cricket have the highest rates of adult participation, while netball, rugby union and football (soccer) are particularly popular among young people. A hāngī is a traditional Māori method of cooking food using heated rocks buried in a pit oven that is still used for large groups on special occasions, such as tangihanga. New Zealand yields produce from land and sea—most crops and livestock, such as maize, potatoes and pigs, were gradually introduced by the early European settlers.
Queenstown is the ideal hub for your South Island adventure. Let New Zealand’s natural beauty inspire your next adventure! What current events are happening in New Zealand? How big is the New Zealand economy?
Charles III is the country’s king and is represented by the governor-general, Cindy Kiro. New Zealand and Australia have a strong relationship and are considered to share a strong Trans-Tasman identity, stemming from centuries of British colonisation. During the 1980s, New Zealand underwent major economic changes that transformed it from a protectionist to a liberalised free-trade economy. The official languages are English, Māori, and New Zealand Sign Language, with the local dialect of English being dominant.
