Interesting Facts about New Zealand

Interesting Facts about New Zealand

At the southwestern edge of the world’s greatest ocean sit two large islands. Filled with stunning natural beauty, these lands were the last of significant size to be settled by humans anywhere. Today, these two islands are a fusion of two peoples, from very different worlds, which together form a unique character among the club of global nations. This is a country of sheep and rugby, the haka, and the outdoors. This is a land of otherworldly television and cinema. This is the most remote of all developed nations. This is New Zealand.

Geography

New Zealand is the most remote developed nation in the world, sitting on the southwestern edge of the Pacific Ocean. Consisting of two large islands and 700 smaller ones, New Zealand is famed for its wild natural scenic beauty. First discovered and colonized by Polynesians in the 13th Century, who later became the Maori, it was later settled by the British in the early 19th Century and today these cultures are fused to create the unique New Zealand of today.

History

The name of the country dates back to its first European discovery by Dutch explorers in the 17th Century, who named it after the province of Zeeland in the Netherlands, originally in the Latin form of Nova Zeelandia, later Anglicised to “New Zealand”.

The Maori call these islands Aotearoa which means “Land of the long white cloud” and refers to a myth of the wife of Kupe, the Polynesian explorer who discovered the islands, supposedly seeing a type of long white cloud near the horizon that would indicate to the expert Polynesian navigators that land was beneath them. Aotearoa by extension refers to the whole country being short for Aotearoa me Te Wai Pounamu – “North and South Island”.

Te Wai Pounamu is the official name of the South Island in the Maori language and means “The Greenstone Waters”, while the official Maori name for the North Island is “Te Ika-a-Maui”, the giant fish of the mythical hero Maui. Current polling on the issue of the country’s name is to stick with the status quo, with just over half of respondents in a recent survey (58%) saying they prefer New Zealand only.

But the bloc of respondents who wanted Aotearoa somewhere in the name – be it solely (9%) or a combination of Aotearoa New Zealand (31%) was sizeable. With the current trend of former colonial territories reverting to native names throughout the world, it seems likely that at some point in the future, Aotearoa will be weaved into the name of this country.

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Interesting Facts

• It was the first country to grant women the right to vote.
• In 1893, New Zealand became the first country in the world to give women the right to vote in general elections.
• It is the home of the Hobbits and Lord of the Rings. Film director Peter Jackson used New Zealand's stunning scenery as the backdrop for his epic fantasy films "The Lord of the Rings" and "The Hobbit." Many of the actual filming locations are open to visitors.
• It has some of the most amazing glaciers in the world. The Franz Josef and Fox Glaciers, located on the South Island, are two of the most popular tourist destinations. Visitors can enjoy these incredible sights by hiking on the glaciers, taking a boat ride among the ice, or even heli-skiing.
• It is free of snakes. New Zealand is one of the few countries in the world that has no native snakes. This is due to its geographical isolation.
• Its national bird is flightless. The kiwi, New Zealand's national bird, is an icon of the country and can be found in many zoos and wildlife sanctuaries throughout New Zealand.
• Its national sport is rugby. Rugby is hugely popular in New Zealand, and the national team, the All Blacks, is one of the most successful in the world.
• It has some of the cleanest drinking water in the world. Tap water in New Zealand is of extremely high quality and comes straight from the mountains and aquifers.
• It is a land of active volcanoes. There are a number of active volcanoes in New Zealand, including Mount Ruapehu, which is the most active volcano in the country.
• It has two official languages. English and Māori are the two official languages of New Zealand. Māori is spoken by the indigenous people of the country, the Māori.
• It is a stunningly beautiful country with diverse landscapes. New Zealand is renowned for its breathtaking scenery, including mountains, glaciers, beaches, and forests.

Location

This country sits on the southwestern edge of the Pacific Ocean. Being just west of the International Date Line, it has a time zone of +12 UTC, in a southerly latitude range of 34 to 47°S, and so is literally on the opposite side of the world to the European mother country of Great Britain at +0 UTC and approximately 52°N.

It is among the first of nations to celebrate the bringing in of the New Year. There are two main islands – which appear on maps as North and South Island, but which are referred to by locals using the definite article, i.e. “The North Island” and “The South Island”. These are separated by the Cook Strait, just 22km (14 mi) at its narrowest point. There are 700 smaller islands, the largest being Stewart Island off the south coast of South Island.

This country also has a free association with the Cook Islands and Niue. These territories maintain their internal affairs, but New Zealand is responsible for their defense and foreign affairs. With a total land area of 270,467km2, it is slighty smaller than the British Isles (315,159 km2). South Island is the larger of the two, being 151,215 square kilometers (58,384 square miles), with North Island a third smaller at,729 square kilometers (43,911 square miles).

The road journey of just over 1,000km from the northern to southern tip of North Island would take around 13 hours (1054km, 13h 3m). The equivalent journey on the South Island is about 10% shorter (920km, 11h29m).

Topography

The topography of this country is determined by its location on the boundary of the Australian and Pacific tectonic plates. South Island is more mountainous than North Island, with the Southern Alps rising to 3,724 meters (12,218 feet) at their highest point at Mount Cook.

It is here that we find arguably the most stunning landscapes as these mountains descend into the Tasman Sea in the west in the form of deep fjords carved out from glaciers during the last ice age. Most of the volcanoes are found in the central part of North Island around Lake Taupo.

This large lake is the cratered remains of the world’s last supervolcano eruption, occurring about 27,000 years ago in which over a thousand square km (280 cu mi) of material was ejected. Much more recently, in December of 2019 in the Bay of Plenty to the north of Taupo, a small eruption of White Island tragically killed 22 tourists who were visiting at that time.

Earthquakes

Earthquakes are also a part of living on this plate boundary. The most recent, devastating reminder of this was in February of 2011, when a Magnitude 6.2 Earthquake occurred underneath the country’s second-largest city, Christchurch. 185 people lost their lives and thousands were injured.

Over 10,000 homes needed to be demolished, due mainly to the collapse of foundations in the liquefaction of the soil in the coastal flats upon which the city was built. This was the worst of a series of quakes to batter the region in 2010 and 2011. The total cost of rebuilding is estimated to have been $NZ 40bn, making it the costliest natural disaster in the country’s history.

Climate

New Zealand has an especially mild temperate climate, being dominated by the Koppen Oceanic climate of cool winters and warm summers. In general, this Oceanic climate has more mild winters than the classic Oceanic climate of North-West Europe with winter frosts outside of the mountains being rare.

North Island, being closer to the equator has a particularly mild climate, but the presence of the surrounding cool oceans and the almost ever-present westerly winds prevents summers from becoming hot and truly subtropical.

On South Island, these westerlies dump their moist air upon the steep slopes of the Southern Alps, leading to very high rainfall figures that produce one of the few temperate rainforests found in the world. In contrast, the eastern parts of South Island border on semi-arid conditions since so little rain is left once the westerlies have passed over the mountains.

Here, in this drier region, we find in the natural biome a form of grassland instead of forest. On North Island, the patterns of rainfall are less extreme, and the natural biomes here are a mix of forest and grasslands. In general, the day-to-day weather in this country is notoriously changeable, with dramatic shifts in weather sometimes as much as four times in one day. This is due to the country being surrounded by ocean waters that regularly brew up storms that descend onto the land.

Deforestation

Deforestation began with the arrival of the Maori seven centuries ago, with about half of the islands’ forests lost before the arrival of the British. Most of the remaining forests since then have been replaced by farmland, from which agriculture dominated the economy for more than a century until 50 years ago.

An exception to this land use is the rugged west coast of South Island and its temperate rainforest, which due to its very high rainfall as well as steep topography has remained unsuitable for cultivation.

Animal species

With New Zealand so isolated from other land masses for millions of years, animal species have evolved into very different forms compared to the rest of the world. Remarkably, no land mammal species existed in New Zealand before the arrival of humans, and so, lacking such predators, birds were free to develop into giant forms, with one of the now-extinct Moa bird species being the tallest birds to have existed, reaching up to 3.6m (12 ft) in height.

The lack of mammalian predators before the arrival of humans saw New Zealand having perhaps the greatest biodiversity of ground-nesting birds in the world. But the introduction of rats, stoats, and feral cats, particularly by the Europeans, had a devastating impact on this bird population, whose ground-based nests were easy pickings for egg and chick hunters. The most famous family of such ground-nesting birds, however, has survived.

kiwi

The kiwi is a distant relation to ostriches and emus and has become a national symbol, with the demonym, “Kiwi” being applied to people from New Zealand.

Population

Kiwis, of the human form, currently total just over 5 million, making it the 121st most populous nation in the world. With a relatively small population over a sizeable land area – New Zealand’s population is less than 10% of Britain’s, but of a similar size in area – it is one of the least densely populated countries in the world.

About three-quarters of the population live on North Island with the metropolitan area of Auckland accounting for a third of all people in the country at around 1.7 million. The next largest city is Christchurch on South Island at about half a million in the metro area, with the capital city, Wellington, third at around 400,000. About 70% of Kiwis are of European origin and 16% are Maori.

In recent decades significant immigration from China and India has contributed to about 12% of the population being considered Asian. People from Pacific islands other than New Zealand account for about 8% of the population. The total exceeds 100% as the 2018 census respondents were allowed to select more than one ethnicity.

Language

The language spoken throughout the country is English, due to the country once being a colony of the British Empire. The language is spoken with a Kiwi accent, similar to Australian, and while the difference is easily distinguishable between Aussies and Kiwis themselves, as a pommie outsider peopple find it harder to split the two.

Maori is the second language of the country, and is a part of the Polynesian family of languages, with Hawaiian, Tongan, and Samoan being notable others. Polynesian is in turn a part of the Austronesian supergroup of languages that also includes Indonesian, Malay, and the various Filipino languages.

Religion

New Zealand is one of the most secular countries in the world with almost half of 2018 census respondents saying they had no religion. About 37% identified as Christian.

Government

For administrative purposes, the country is divided into 11 regional councils that deal with regional environmental and resource issues, and 67 territorial authorities, that deal with the traditional local authority matters such as roads, water, and planning.

As New Zealand is a part of the British Commonwealth, the head of state is the King residing in Britain, but this, like in all Commonwealth countries, is a ceremonial role, with true power invested in parliament, which, in New Zealand’s case, is the House of Representatives, which sits in the capital of Wellington.

Members of parliament are elected by a system of proportional representation for three-year terms, among the shortest in the world. Executive power is granted to a cabinet of ministers chosen by a prime minister who is the leader of the political party with the most seats in parliament. The two parties that have dominated New Zealand politics for almost a century are the center-right National Party and their center-left rivals, the Labour Party.

In the Cato Institute’s latest Human Freedom Index, which takes into account the health crisis of 2020, New Zealand scores extremely high, ranked overall 2 in the world due to its combination of economic and personal freedom. Only the size of the government acts as a blot on this picture. The Flag of New Zealand is based upon the old British Navy Blue Ensign, as is common with many other Commonwealth countries.

Flag

In New Zealand’s case, the Ensign is augmented with the four brightest stars of the Southern Cross constellation, visible throughout the year at these southerly latitudes. First used by colony ships in 1869, it has been in official use as the national flag since 1902. The flag has great similarity with that of Australia, but with the stars being red instead of white, and missing the fifth star of the Southern Cross and the large Commonwealth star bottom left.

The coat of arms is filled with meaning relating to the country’s history and makeup. The two supporters of the central shield are a European woman and a Maori chieftain, to symbolize the dual primary ethnicities of the country. St Edward’s crown sits atop the shield, to indicate that the British King is head of state. The shield is split into three columns, representing the North and South Islands and the Cook Strait between.

The Southern Cross, a wheatsheaf, a fleece, and cross hammers represent the southern aspect of the islands, its agricultural and mining activity respectively, while the three ancient galleys in the middle represent the sea trade that has so dominated the country’s past and present. Lastly, the name of the country is presented on a scroll supported by fronds of the ferns that are so commonly found within the country’s natural habitat.

Economy

With a GDP of $252 bn, New Zealand’s economy is the 52nd largest in the world in nominal terms. Where once this economy was dominated by agriculture, following a restructuring in the 1970s and 80s, services now form over two-thirds of wealth creation in the country. New Zealand nonetheless is still a net exporter, with agriculture dominating in the form of milk, meat, and butter, but the agriculture and extraction industries account for less than 10% of the country’s GDP as a whole.

Manufacturing accounts for around 12%. Since a certain trilogy of films was released two decades ago, New Zealand tourism has boomed, despite the country’s remoteness, and is now the leading source of foreign currency in the country, and a significant part of the service economy. Financial services are another key service industry.

Currency

The local currency is the New Zealand dollar, which at the time of this article was trading at 1.61 to the US dollar.

Culture

The culture of New Zealand is dominated by the association with the majority of its population’s ancestors of the British Isles.

Sport

In sport, this is most keenly observed, with cricket and yachting for instance being notable continuations of the pursuits of the British. But it is in Rugby, another British import, where the Kiwis went on to better their forefathers, and the New Zealand All Blacks are considered to be the greatest, and most feared, national team in the sport. A part of the “most feared” aspect comes from the team performing a “haka” just before kick-off in each game.

The “haka” is a traditional Maori dance performed in several different forms depending on purpose. In addition to the chanting and synchronized dance, it is notable for the fearsome expressions made by the performers, especially those hakas performed before going into battle, or indeed a game of rugby, intended to put fear into the enemy or opposition.

Contribution to global culture

However, the greatest contribution to global culture from New Zealand has been the recent growth of the genre TV and movie industry. Many popular TV shows, especially in speculative fiction have been filmed here, with local talent emerging in the form of a parade of actors and actresses that went on to international recognition, as well as world-class special effects production.

The greatest of these projects, of course, is Peter Jackson’s adaptation of JRR Tolkien’s Lord of The Rings classic fantasy trilogy. Filmed almost entirely within this country, the stunning scenery of the land itself brought to life on-screen Tolkein’s vision of Middle Earth in a way that perhaps no other land could.