page_title: New Zealand
section_title: Geography and environment
hierarchical_section_title: New Zealand / Geography and environment
caption_attribution_description: This true-colour image provides a nearly cloud-free view of New Zealand, from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra satellite. Description from NASA's Visible Earth website:[1] This stunning true-color image provides a rare, cloud-free look at the island nation of New Zealand, including most of its North and South Islands. This scene was acquired by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS), flying aboard NASA’s Terra satellite, on October 23, 2002. New Zealand is situated in the South Pacific Ocean, roughly 2,000 km (1,250 miles) southeast of Australia. Wellington, the capital of New Zealand, is located on the southern tip of the North Island, looking across Cook Strait toward South Island. The New Zealand land mass is ancient. Geologists estimate that it separated from the ancient supercontinent of Gondwana around 80 million years ago as a single land mass, which geologists call Rangitata. Around 5 million years ago, New Zealand’s North and South Islands began to take the shape they have today. Rainforest covered most of New Zealand’s land area as recently as seven thousand years ago. Isolated from the rest of the world by vast expanses of ocean, New Zealand was a haven for unique species of flora and fauna, including many species of flightless birds that evolved in safety at ground level through the millennia. Perhaps the most well-known of these flightless birds today is the Kiwi, which adapted to a forest environment, feeding mainly upon earthworms and larvae. Humans first settled on New Zealand somewhere between 950 and 1130 AD. The first settlers were Polynesians who, well known for their navigation skill, probably made the voyage in twin-hulled or outrigger canoes. These first Polynesian settlers called their new home “Aotearoa,” which means “land of the long white cloud.” The first Europeans believed to have visited New Zealand were led by Abel Janszoon Tasman from the Netherlands. In 1633, Tasman was hired by the Dutch East India Company to sail the trading routes between Europe and Batavia (what is today known as Jakarta, Indonesia). In 1642, on a 10-year contract with the Company, Tasman was instructed to find the elusive and wealthy Southern Continent that supposedly stretched across the Pacific. Tasman set sail on Aug. 13, 1642, in command of two ships — the Zeehaen and the Heemskerck. Four months later, Tasman and his crew spotted the coast of a new land that Tasman described as “a large land, uplifted high.” He named it “Staten Landt,” in reference to the Land of the Dutch States-General. Although there are no clear records of precisely how New Zealand got its modern name, its first usage is attributed to Dutch Captain Willem Jansz. In 1606, Jansz sailed his ship, the Duyfken, southeast ward to search for trade opportunities in the "south and east lands" beyond the furthest reaches of their known world. During his voyage, Jansz observed an island off the coast of New Guinea, which he named “Nieu Zelandt.” Subsequently, many maps recorded the name “Nieu Zelandt” as recently as the late 1700s. Other maps appearing as early as 1645 carried the name “Zeelandia Nova” (meaning “new sea land”). Some historians suggest the land was named after the one of the Dutch provinces, Zeeland, which was separated from the province of Holland by the sea (thus “Sea-land”). Australia was given the name Hollandia Nova (New Holland) and so Zeelandia Nova (New Zeeland), separated by an expanse of ocean, makes sense. Other historians suggest that Zeeland was the name of the second most important chamber of the Dutch East India Company. Thus, they suggest the island was named after this chamber.
context_page_description: New Zealand is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It comprises two main landmasses—the North Island and the South Island —and around 600 smaller islands, covering a total area of 268,021 square kilometres. New Zealand is about 2,000 kilometres east of Australia across the Tasman Sea and 1,000 kilometres 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.
  Owing to their remoteness, the islands of New Zealand were the last large habitable lands to be settled by humans. Between about 1280 and 1350, Polynesians began to settle in the islands, and then developed a distinctive Māori culture. In 1642, Dutch explorer Abel Tasman became the first European to sight New Zealand. In 1840, representatives of the United Kingdom and Māori chiefs signed the Treaty of Waitangi, which declared British sovereignty over the islands.
context_section_description: New Zealand is located near the centre of the water hemisphere and is made up of two main islands and a number of smaller islands. The two main islands (the North Island, or Te Ika-a-Māui, and the South Island, or Te Waipounamu) are separated by Cook Strait, 22 kilometres (14 mi) wide at its narrowest point. Besides the North and South Islands, the five largest inhabited islands are Stewart Island (across the Foveaux Strait), Chatham Island, Great Barrier Island (in the Hauraki Gulf), D'Urville Island (in the Marlborough Sounds) and Waiheke Island (about 22 km (14 mi) from central Auckland).
  New Zealand is long and narrow—over 1,600 kilometres (990 mi) along its north-north-east axis with a maximum width of 400 kilometres (250 mi)—with about 15,000 km (9,300 mi) of coastline and a total land area of 268,000 square kilometres (103,500 sq mi). Because of its far-flung outlying islands and long coastline, the country has extensive marine resources. Its exclusive economic zone is one of the largest in the world, covering more than 15 times its land area.
  The South Island is the largest landmass of New Zealand. It is divided along its length by the Southern Alps. There are 18 peaks over 3,000 metres (9,800 ft), the highest of which is Aoraki / Mount Cook at 3,724 metres (12,218 ft). Fiordland's steep mountains and deep fiords record the extensive ice age glaciation of this southwestern corner of the South Island. The North Island is less mountainous but is marked by volcanism. The highly active Taupo Volcanic Zone has formed a large volcanic plateau, punctuated by the North Island's highest mountain, Mount Ruapehu (2,797 metres (9,177 ft)). The plateau also hosts the country's largest lake, Lake Taupo, nestled in the caldera of one of the world's most active supervolcanoes.
  The country owes its varied topography, and perhaps even its emergence above the waves, to the dynamic boundary it straddles between the Pacific and Indo-Australian Plates. New Zealand is part of Zealandia, a microcontinent nearly half the size of Australia that gradually submerged after breaking away from the Gondwanan supercontinent. About 25 million years ago, a shift in plate tectonic movements began to contort and crumple the region. This is now most evident in the Southern Alps, formed by compression of the crust beside the Alpine Fault. Elsewhere the plate boundary involves the subduction of one plate under the other, producing the Puysegur Trench to the south, the Hikurangi Trench east of the North Island, and the Kermadec and Tonga Trenches further north.
  New Zealand is part of a region known as Australasia, together with Australia. It also forms the southwestern extremity of the geographic and ethnographic region called Polynesia. The term Oceania is often used to denote the wider region encompassing the Australian continent, New Zealand and various islands in the Pacific Ocean that are not included in the seven-continent model.
caption: The snow-capped Southern Alps dominate the South Island, while the North Island's Northland Peninsula stretches towards the subtropics.
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