Portal:New Zealand

The New Zealand Portal

New Zealand
Aotearoa (Māori)
A map of the hemisphere centred on New Zealand, using an orthographic projection.
Location of New Zealand, including outlying islands, its territorial claim in the Antarctic, and Tokelau
ISO 3166 codeNZ

New Zealand (Māori: Aotearoa [aɔˈtɛaɾɔa]) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island (Te Ika-a-Māui) and the South Island (Te Waipounamu)—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island country by area and lies east of Australia across the Tasman Sea and south of the islands of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga. The country's varied topography and sharp mountain peaks, including the Southern Alps, owe much to tectonic uplift and volcanic eruptions. New Zealand's capital city is Wellington, and its most populous city is Auckland.

A developed country, it was the first to introduce a minimum wage, and the first to give women the right to vote. It ranks very highly in international measures of quality of life, human rights, and it has low levels of perceived corruption. It retains visible levels of inequality, having structural disparities between its Māori and European populations. New Zealand underwent major economic changes during the 1980s, which transformed it from a protectionist to a liberalised free-trade economy. The service sector dominates the national economy, followed by the industrial sector, and agriculture; international tourism is also a significant source of revenue. New Zealand is a member of the United Nations, Commonwealth of Nations, ANZUS, UKUSA, OECD, ASEAN Plus Six, Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation, the Pacific Community and the Pacific Islands Forum. It enjoys particularly close relations with the United States and is one of its major non-NATO allies; the United Kingdom; Samoa, Fiji, and Tonga; and with Australia, with a shared "Trans-Tasman" identity between the two countries stemming from centuries of British colonisation. (Full article...)

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Marshal of the RAF Sir Cyril Newall c. 1940

Marshal of the Royal Air Force Cyril Louis Norton Newall, 1st Baron Newall, GCB, OM, GCMG, CBE, AM (15 February 1886 – 30 November 1963) was a senior officer of the British Army and Royal Air Force. He commanded units of the Royal Flying Corps and Royal Air Force in the First World War, and served as Chief of the Air Staff during the first years of the Second World War. From 1941 to 1946 he was the Governor-General of New Zealand.

Born to a military family, Newall studied at the Royal Military College, Sandhurst, before taking a commission as a junior officer in the Royal Warwickshire Regiment in 1905. After transferring to the 2nd Gurkha Rifles in the Indian Army, he saw active service on the North West Frontier, but after learning to fly in 1911 turned towards a career in military aviation. During the First World War he rose from flying instructor to command of 41st Wing RFC, the main strategic bombing force, and was awarded the Albert Medal for putting out a fire in an explosives store. (Full article...)

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More Did you know? - show different entries

...that the sting of New Zealand's ongaonga or tree nettle can be fatal?

...that New Zealand's highest mountain is Aoraki/Mount Cook, at 3,754 metres?

...that while New Zealand rates number 5 on the list of total number of sheep produced, it has the highest number of sheep per-capita?

...that New Zealand’s longest serving Prime Minister was Richard Seddon?


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The Kakapo is a species of nocturnal parrot, endemic to New Zealand. It is notable for being the world's only flightless parrot, the heaviest parrot, and the only parrot to have a lek breeding system. It is also the only flightless lek bird and is possibly one of the world's longest-living birds. It is the only species in the genus Strigops and subfamily Strigopinae. Kakapo are critically endangered, with only 86 living individuals known, all of whom are named. Prehistorically, the ancestral Kakapo migrated to the islands of New Zealand and, in the absence of mammalian predators, it lost the ability to fly. With Polynesian and European colonisation and the introduction of predators such as cats, rats, and stoats, almost all the Kakapo were wiped out. Conservation efforts began in the 1890s, but they were not very successful until the implementation of the Kakapo Recovery Plan in the 1980s. All surviving Kakapo are kept on two predator-free islands, Chalky Island in south-west Fiordland and Codfish Island/Whenuahou near Stewart Island/Rakiura, where they are closely monitored. (Full article...)

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New Zealand Parliamentary Buildings
New Zealand Parliamentary Buildings

New Zealand Parliament Buildings (Māori: Ngā whare Paremata) house the New Zealand Parliament and are on a 45,000 square metre site at the northern end of Lambton Quay, Wellington. From north to south, they are the Parliamentary Library building (1899); the Edwardian neoclassical-style Parliament House (1922); the executive wing, called "The Beehive" (1977); and Bowen House (in use since 1991). Whilst most of the individual buildings are outstanding for different reasons, the overall setting that has been achieved "has little aesthetic or architectural coherence". (Full article...)

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