New Zealand
New Zealand (also known as Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'Module:Language/data/iana scripts' not found.) is an island country in Oceania. It is a sovereign state in the south-western part of the Pacific Ocean. It is made up of two large islands (the North Island and the South Island) and many smaller islands. These islands are located to the southeast of Australia.
The capital city of the country is Wellington, but the largest city is Auckland. Both of these cities are on the North Island. The largest city on the South Island is Christchurch.
The official languages are English, Māori and New Zealand sign language. English has never been officially granted official language status but it is used as a default official language due to its wide usage.
In 2010, New Zealand was ranked as the 8th happiest country in the world.[11]
Contents
Name
The name "New Zealand" comes from “Zeeland” (which translates to "Sealand") in Dutch, after it was sighted by Dutch Explorer Abel Tasman. Zeeland is a province of the Netherlands. New Zealand is called “Aotearoa” in the Māori language. It means "Land of the Long White Cloud". Ao means “cloud”, tea means “white”, and roa means “long”.
Government and politics
New Zealand is a constitutional monarchy and parliamentary democracy. The head of state is Queen Elizabeth II. The Prime Minister is Jacinda Ardern.
New Zealand has made itself a Nuclear Free Zone: They do not use nuclear power and do not allow nuclear weapons or nuclear powered vessels in their territory.
Elections are held every 3 years[12]
People
As of the 2006 census, 4,143,279 people lived in New Zealand.[13] Most of them have European ancestors.[14] The indigenous people of New Zealand, the Māori, had a population of 565,329, or 14.6%.
The people of New Zealand often call themselves Kiwis, representing their national native although flightless bird. The North Island is smaller than the South Island, but most people (more than 3 million) live there.
The main religion in New Zealand is Christianity. Just over 2 million New Zealanders are Christian.[15]
Cities
Farming represents a large community in both the North and South Islands. Most New Zealanders, however, choose to live in more urban areas. Wellington is the capital of New Zealand. Auckland is the largest city, with around 1 million people. Other cities in the North Island include Hamilton, Tauranga, Napier/Hastings, New Plymouth, Wanganui, and Palmerston North. South Island cities include Christchurch, Dunedin, Nelson, Invercargill and Timaru.
Geological origin
New Zealand sits at the boundary between the Australian and Pacific continental plates. When these two plates moved together ('collided'), one (the Pacific) moved under the other (the Australian) north of the South Island. As a result, there was a great deal of volcanic activity. South of the South Island, the Australian plate moves under the Pacific plate instead. The plates slide past each other in the South Island, where they have pushed up the Southern Alps. Because of these two colliding plates, New Zealand often has earthquakes. One of the best known is the 2010-2011 group of earthquakes that hit the Christchurch area.
The diagram shows that the North Island is on the Australian plate, but most of the South Island is on the Pacific plate. New Zealand is still geologically active, and will remain so as long as the islands are sitting above the plate boundary.[16][17][18]
Ancient geology
The oldest rocks in New Zealand date from the Cambrian period, 512 million years ago. New Zealand became part of the global supercontinent Pangaea. When that split (End-Triassic/early Jurassic), New Zealand became part of the southern supercontinent Gondwana. Finally Gondwana broke up, leaving the continents rather as they are today.
Natural history
New Zealand was isolated from the rest of the world for a long time. It split from Australia 83 million years ago. Because of this, there are many plants and animals that only live in New Zealand. Before humans came to New Zealand, there were no mammals, except three species of bat and marine mammals such as seals, dolphins, and whales. Instead, New Zealand has many different kinds of bird. New Zealand has several species of flightless bird, including the kiwi. Especially important is the Tuatara, the only living member of a whole order of reptiles.
New Zealand used to have more rare species, but some, mostly birds, were hunted to extinction early in its history. The giant Moa, Dinornis, is a famous example. The group of birds to which the Moa belongs had been in existence since the Cretaceous period. Humans arrived in New Zealand about a thousand years ago, when a large number of moas lived, especially on South Island. Archaeological sites with evidence of Moa hunting are all over New Zealand. The moas became extinct about five hundred years ago.[19] Extinctions closer to today have been caused by habitat change and introduced species like rats and dogs, which can kill the native species.
Other information
- Sir Edmund Hillary, the first man set foot on Mount Everest, was from New Zealand.
- New Zealand has become more popular since New Zealand born Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings movies were all made there.
- Many farmers in New Zealand breed sheep. There are many more sheep than people in New Zealand.
- Many New Zealanders are interested in sports. Their national game is usually considered to be rugby (in winter). They have impressive athletes in rowing, cycling, shotput, discus, iron man, triathlon, yachting, climbing, surfing, cricket, netball, softball, wind surfing, gliding, and more.
- New Zealanders enjoy outdoor pursuits. They have a "clean, green" image as a country, however per-capita emissions are 7th worst out of 41 industrialized nations as of 2017.[20] Severe air and water pollution is fairly rare, though occasional outbreaks in the past 20 years have caused problems for livestock and the surrounding waters. Most major rivers (60% estimated as of 2017) are not safe to swim in due to farming pollution and run-off.[21]
- New Zealand, like many other small nations, has a strong local media. New Zealand has a wide variety of musicians, television (and even radio) celebrities, and stand-up comedians. Although most are simply "world-famous in New Zealand", many others have successfully made it on the international scene. Such people and groups include Russell Crowe (actor), Kiri Te Kanawa (singer), the Flight of the Conchords, Crowded House (band), Lee Tamahori (movie director), Peter Jackson (movie director).
- The NZ Army mostly does peacekeeping. New Zealand sent army engineers to Iraq to do rebuilding during the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
Related pages
- Animals of New Zealand
- List of rivers of New Zealand
- New Zealand at the Olympics
- New Zealand national football team
References
- ↑ "New Zealand's National Anthems". Ministry for Culture and Heritage. Retrieved 17 February 2008.
- ↑ "Protocol for using New Zealand's National Anthems". Ministry for Culture and Heritage. Retrieved 17 February 2008.
- ↑ "QuickStats About Culture and Identity: Languages spoken". Statistics New Zealand. March 2006. Retrieved 20 February 2008.
- ↑ Didham, Robert; Potter, Deb (April 2005). Understanding and Working with Ethnicity Data. Statistics New Zealand. ISBN 9780478315059. Archived from the original on 25 November 2007. https://web.archive.org/web/20071125133402/http://www.stats.govt.nz/NR/rdonlyres/F9967810-E15B-4D28-A8E3-DBAD6B80954C/0/UnderstandingWorkingEthnicityData.pdf. Retrieved 19 September 2010.
- ↑ "The New Zealand Land Cover Database". New Zealand Land Cover Database 2. New Zealand Ministry for the Environment. 1 July 2009. Retrieved 26 April 2011.
- ↑ "National Population Estimates: September 2011 quarter". Statistics New Zealand. 14 November 2011. Retrieved 15 November 2011.
- ↑ "QuickStats About New Zealand's Population and Dwellings: Population counts". 2006 Census. Statistics New Zealand. Retrieved 14 April 2011.
- ↑ 8.0 8.1 8.2 8.3 "New Zealand". International Monetary Fund. Retrieved 2011-01-29.
- ↑ "Equality and inequality: Gini index". Human Development Report 2009. United Nations Development Programme. Retrieved 14 April 2011.
- ↑ "Human Development Report 2011" (PDF). United Nations. Retrieved 2011-11-02.
- ↑ "NZ eighth happiest country in the world". nzherald.co.nz. Retrieved 17 July 2015.
- ↑ "How government works". New Zealand Government. Retrieved 2018-12-13.
- ↑ "QuickStats About New Zealand's Population and Dwellings - Statistics New Zealand". stats.govt.nz. Retrieved 4 July 2010.
- ↑ "QuickStats About Culture and Identity - Statistics New Zealand". stats.govt.nz. Retrieved 4 July 2010.
- ↑ "QuickStats About Culture and Identity - Statistics New Zealand". stats.govt.nz. Retrieved 4 July 2010.
- ↑ Graham, Ian J. et al. 2008. A continent on the move : New Zealand geoscience into the 21st century. The Geological Society of New Zealand in association with GNS Science. Template:Catalog lookup linkScript error: No such module "check isxn".
- ↑ Campbell, Hamish & Hutching, Gerard 2007. In search of ancient New Zealand, Penguin Books in association with GNS Science. Template:Catalog lookup linkScript error: No such module "check isxn".
- ↑ Te Ara Encyclopedia of New Zealand An overview of New Zealand's geology
- ↑ Martin P.S. and Klein R.G. (eds) Quaternary extinctions: a prehistoric revolution. University of Arizona Press, Tucson AZ.
- ↑ "NZ seventh-worst on emissions of 41 nations". Radio New Zealand. 2017-05-26. Retrieved 2018-06-07.
- ↑ "Dairy farming is polluting New Zealand's water". The Economist. Retrieved 2018-06-07.
Notes
- ↑ "God Save the Queen" is officially a national anthem but is generally used only on regal and vice-regal occasions.[1][2]
- ↑ Language percentages add to more than 100% because some people speak more than one language. They exclude unusable responses and those who spoke no language (e.g. too young to talk).[3]
- ↑ Ethnicity percentages add to more than 100% because some people identify with more than one ethnic group.[4]
- ↑ There is a multitude of dates that could be considered to mark independence (see Independence of New Zealand).
- ↑ The proportion of New Zealand's area (excluding estuaries) covered by rivers, lakes and ponds, based on figures from the New Zealand Land Cover Database,[5] is (357526 + 81936) / (26821559 – 92499–26033 – 19216) = 1.6%. If estuarine open water, mangroves, and herbaceous saline vegetation are included, the figure is 2.2%.
- ↑ The Chatham Islands have a separate time zone, 45 minutes ahead of the rest of New Zealand.
- ↑ The territories of Niue, the Cook Islands and Tokelau have their own cctlds, .nu, .ck and .tk respectively.
