From the early 19th century, Christian missionaries began to settle New Zealand, eventually converting most of the Māori population. Some Māori later migrated to the Chatham Islands, where they developed their distinct Moriori culture; a later 1835 invasion by Māori iwi resulted in the massacre and virtual extinction of the Moriori. The first people to reach New Zealand were Polynesians in ocean going waka, who are believed to have arrived in several waves between about 1280 and 1350. Similarly the Māori and English names for the whole country are sometimes used together (Aotearoa New Zealand); however, this has no official recognition. For each island, either its English or Māori name can be used, or both can be used together.
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Māori developed a varied musical tradition around songs and chants, including ceremonial performances, laments, and love songs. Although still largely influenced by global trends (modernism) and events (the Great Depression), writers in the 1930s began to develop stories increasingly focused on their experiences in New Zealand. Most early English literature was obtained from Britain, and it was not until the 1950s when local publishing outlets increased that New Zealand literature started to become widely known. However, the local fashion industry has grown significantly since 2000, doubling exports and increasing from a handful to about 50 established labels, with some labels gaining international recognition. Standards have since relaxed and New Zealand fashion has received a reputation for being casual, practical and lacklustre.
After financial reforms in 1984, successive governments transformed New Zealand from a highly protectionist and regulated economy to a liberalized free market economy. New Zealand recorded the highest casualties per head of population of any combatant nation during World War I, when 100,000 served and 17,000 were killed. The first capital was in the Bay of Islands, in the far north, but soon moved to Auckland. The Maori called the North Island Aotearoa, a name which is now the most widely known and accepted Maori name for the entire country. Conditions vary from wet and cold on South Island’s west coast to dry and continental a short distance away across the mountains and subtropical in the northern reaches of North Island.
- Since 2012, New Zealand has had a partnership arrangement with NATO under the Partnership Interoperability Initiative.
- Charles III is the country’s king and is represented by the governor-general, Cindy Kiro.
- New Zealand has a highly varied terrain with mountain ranges and hill country dominating the landscape.
- Tourism plays a significant role in the economy, contributing $12.9 billion (or 5.6%) to New Zealand’s total GDP and supporting 7.5% of the total workforce in 2016.
- The nearest continent is Australia to the west north west, with the shortest distance between the Australian and New Zealand mainlands being roughly 1,487 kilometers (924 miles) across the Tasman Sea, specifically between Tasmania and Fiordland.
- The Cook Islands and Niue are self-governing states in free association with New Zealand.
- Europeans brought English fashion etiquette to New Zealand, and until the 1950s most people dressed up for social occasions.
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.
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The country’s isolation delayed the influence of European artistic trends allowing local artists to develop their own distinctive style of regionalism. Since European arrival paintings and photographs have been dominated by landscapes, originally not as works of art but as factual portrayals of New Zealand. As part of the resurgence of Māori betista casino login culture, the traditional crafts of carving and weaving are now more widely practised, and Māori artists are increasing in number and influence. The largely rural life in early New Zealand led to the image of New Zealanders as rugged, industrious problem solvers. However, Māori still regard their allegiance to tribal groups as a vital part of their identity, and Māori kinship roles resemble those of other Polynesian peoples.
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. Smaller islands include Stewart Island, which lies south of South Island; Waiheke and Great Barrier islands, near the north end of North Island; and the Chatham Islands, more than 800 km east of South Island. Despite New Zealand’s isolation, the country has been fully engaged in international affairs since the early 20th century, being an active member of a number of intergovernmental institutions, including the United Nations.
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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At the 2023 census, 51.6% of population said they had no religion, up from 48.2% in 2018 census. As recorded in the 2018 census, Samoan is the most widely spoken non-official language (2.2%), followed by “Northern Chinese” (including Mandarin, 2.0%), Hindi (1.5%), and French (1.2%). The number of fee-paying international students and international exchange students increased sharply in the late 1990s, with more than 20,000 studying in public tertiary institutions in 2002. The most popular countries of origin for overseas-born residents were England (14.6%), mainland China (10.2%), India (10.0%), the Philippines (7.0%), South Africa (6.7%), Australia (6.1%), Fiji (4.8%) and Samoa (4.3%). In 2009–10, an annual target of 45,000–50,000 permanent residence approvals was set by the New Zealand Immigration Service—more than one new migrant for every 100 New Zealand residents. Following colonisation, immigrants were predominantly from Britain, Ireland and Australia because of restrictive policies similar to the White Australia policy.
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The population, in slight excess of four million, is similar in size to Costa Rica’s. New Zealand’s total land area, nearly 270,000 km², is about the same as that of Colorado and somewhat smaller than the Philippines. The closest neighbors to the north are New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga. It is separated from Australia to the northwest by the Tasman Sea, which is some 2,000 km across.
Because of its far-flung outlying islands and long coastline, the country has extensive marine resources. Since 1937, the islands are uninhabited except for about six people at Raoul Island station. In 1830, mapmakers began to use “North” and “South” on their maps to distinguish the two largest islands, and by 1907, this was the accepted norm. Māori had several traditional names for the two main islands, including Te Ika-a-Māui (‘the fish of Māui’) for the North Island and Te Waipounamu (‘the waters of greenstone’) or Te Waka o Aoraki (‘the canoe of Aoraki’) for the South Island.
However, British inability to protect the country from Japanese aggression in World War II began a period of American influence. Since then, the country has been a sovereign constitutional monarchy within the Commonwealth of Nations. Full independence was granted with the Statute of Westminster in 1931, which was adopted by the New Zealand parliament in 1947. The discovery of gold on South Island in 1861 sparked concerns that settlers there would form a separate colony, so in 1865 the capital was moved to the more central city of Wellington. His Constitution Act of 1853 set up a national system of representative government and a prime minister. New Zealand was initially administered as a part of the colony of New South Wales.
The 1923 and 1926 Imperial Conferences decided that New Zealand should be allowed to negotiate its own political treaties, and the first commercial treaty was ratified in 1928 with Japan. During the period of the New Zealand colony, Britain was responsible for external trade and foreign relations. The Ross Dependency is New Zealand’s territorial claim in Antarctica, where it operates the Scott Base research facility.
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.
- Māori had several traditional names for the two main islands, including Te Ika-a-Māui (‘the fish of Māui’) for the North Island and Te Waipounamu (‘the waters of greenstone’) or Te Waka o Aoraki (‘the canoe of Aoraki’) for the South Island.
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- Canterbury offers a glimpse at New Zealand’s rural heritage, with the stunning Southern Alps down the centre of the region.
- In September 2020 Statistics New Zealand reported that the population had climbed above 5 million people in September 2019, according to population estimates based on the 2018 census.n 9
- Those of full or part-Maori ancestry comprise about 15 percent while most of the remainder are of Asian and Pacific Island origin.
- It is the sole home, for example, of the long-beaked, flightless kiwi, the ubiquitous nickname for New Zealanders.
- 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.
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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 New Zealand Post Office had a monopoly over telecommunications in New Zealand until 1987 when Telecom New Zealand was formed, initially as a state-owned enterprise and then privatised in 1990. Railways run the length of the country, although most lines now carry freight rather than passengers. The state-owned enterprise KiwiRail now operates the railways, with the exception of commuter services in Auckland and Wellington, which are operated by Auckland One Rail and Transdev Wellington respectively. State-owned Transpower operates the high-voltage transmission grids in the North and South Islands, as well as the Inter-Island HVDC link connecting the two together.
But unresolved disputes over land ownership and sovereignty led to a series of armed clashes, known as the Maori Wars, the NZ Wars, or the Land Wars, which continued until 1872. The Treaty of Waitangi was concluded between the British government and Maori chiefs in early 1840. The first Europeans to live in New Zealand were seamen who jumped ship, convicts who had escaped from British penal colonies in Australia, sealers, whalers, and traders. In the same year as Cook’s first visit, French explorer Jean de Surville conducted the first Christian service in New Zealand waters on Christmas Day. He recognized the relationship between the Maori and the Tahitian people his expedition had already visited. This was changed by Dutch cartographers to Nova Zeelandia, after the Dutch province of Zeeland.
New Zealand’s transport network comprises 94,000 kilometres (58,410 mi) of roads, including 199 kilometres (124 mi) of motorways, and 4,128 kilometres (2,565 mi) of railway lines. In contrast, dairy farming increased, with the number of dairy cows doubling between 1990 and 2007, to become New Zealand’s largest export earner. On 7 April 2008, New Zealand and China signed the New Zealand–China Free Trade Agreement, the first such agreement China has signed with a developed country. Food products made up 55% of the value of all the country’s exports in 2014; wood was the second largest earner (7%). Exports account for 24% of its output, making New Zealand vulnerable to international commodity prices and global economic slowdowns.
The early European settlers divided New Zealand into provinces, which had a degree of autonomy. One example of structural inequality in New Zealand can be seen in the criminal justice system. The New Zealand Human Rights Commission has asserted that there is strong, consistent evidence that structural discrimination is a real and ongoing socioeconomic issue. But this is untrue of local council elections; a historically low 36% of eligible New Zealanders voted in the 2022 local elections, compared with an already low 42% turnout in 2019. New Zealand ranks highly for civic participation in the political process, with 82% voter turnout during recent general elections, compared to an OECD average of 69%. New Zealand’s judiciary, headed by the chief justice, includes the Supreme Court, Court of Appeal, the High Court, and subordinate courts.