page_title: Geography of New Zealand
section_title: Mountain, volcanoes and glaciers
hierarchical_section_title: Geography of New Zealand / Physical geography / Mountain, volcanoes and glaciers
caption_attribution_description: English: Central Plateau of the North Island of New Zealand.
context_page_description: New Zealand is an island country located in the south-western Pacific Ocean, near the centre of the water hemisphere. It consists of a large number of islands, estimated around 600, mainly remnants of a larger land mass now beneath the sea. The two main islands by size are the North Island and the South Island, separated by the Cook Strait. The third-largest is Stewart Island, located 30 kilometres off the tip of the South Island across Foveaux Strait. Other islands are significantly smaller in area. The three largest islands stretch 1,500 kilometres across latitudes 34° to 47° south. New Zealand is the sixth-largest island country in the world, with a land size of 267,710 km².
  New Zealand's terrain ranges from the fiord-like sounds of the southwest to the sandy beaches of the far north. The South Island is dominated by the Southern Alps while a volcanic plateau covers much of the central North Island. Temperatures rarely fall below 0 °C or rise above 30 °C and conditions vary from wet and cold on the South Island's west coast to dry and continental a short distance away across the mountains and near subtropical in the northern reaches of the North Island.
context_section_description: The South Island is much more mountainous than the North, but shows fewer manifestations of recent volcanic activity. There are 18 peaks of more than 3,000 metres (9,800 feet) in the Southern Alps, which stretch for 500 kilometres (310 mi) down the South Island. The closest mountains surpassing it in elevation are found not in Australia, but in New Guinea and Antarctica. As well as the towering peaks, the Southern Alps include huge glaciers such as Franz Josef and Fox. The country's highest mountain is Aoraki / Mount Cook; its height since 2014 is listed as 3,724 metres (12,218 feet) (down from 3,764 m (12,349 ft) before December 1991, due to a rockslide and subsequent erosion). The second highest peak is Mount Tasman, with a height of 3,497 metres (11,473 ft).
  The North Island Volcanic Plateau covers much of central North Island with volcanoes, lava plateaus, and crater lakes. The three highest volcanoes are Mount Ruapehu (2,797 metres (9,177 ft)), Mount Taranaki (2,518 metres (8,261 ft)) and Mount Ngauruhoe (2,287 metres (7,503 ft)). Ruapehu's major eruptions have historically been about 50 years apart, in 1895, 1945 and 1995–1996. The 1886 eruption of Mount Tarawera, located near Rotorua, was New Zealand's largest and deadliest eruption in the last 200 years, killing over 100 people. Another long chain of mountains runs through the North Island, from Wellington to East Cape. The ranges include Tararua and Kaimanawa.
  The lower mountain slopes are covered in native forest. Above this are shrubs, and then tussock grasses. Alpine tundra consists of cushion plants and herbfields; many of these plants have white and yellow flowers.
caption: View of the Central Plateau from the Desert Road showing the three active peaks: Snow-capped Ruapehu (left), conical Ngauruhoe (centre) and broad-domed Tongariro (right)
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