page_title: Fiordland
section_title: Geography
hierarchical_section_title: Fiordland / Geography
caption_attribution_description: English: Looking west from the portal of the Homer Tunnel (underneath Homer Saddle) into one of the valleys (Cleddau Valley) leading into Milford Sound, New Zealand. Contrast between early-winter snow white and rain-slick, dark rock.
context_page_description: Fiordland is a geographic region of New Zealand in the south-western corner of the South Island, comprising the western-most third of Southland. Most of Fiordland is dominated by the steep sides of the snow-capped Southern Alps, deep lakes, and its steep, glacier-carved and now ocean-flooded western valleys. The name "Fiordland" comes from a variant spelling of the Scandinavian word for this type of steep valley, "fjord". The area of Fiordland is dominated by, and very roughly coterminous with, Fiordland National Park, New Zealand's largest National Park.
  Due to the often steep terrain and high amount of rainfall supporting dense vegetation, the interior of the Fiordland region is largely inaccessible. As a result, Fiordland was never subjected to notable logging operations, and even attempts at whaling, seal hunting, and mining were on a small scale and shortlived, partly also because of the challenging weather. Today, Fiordland contains by far the greatest extent of unmodified vegetation in New Zealand and significant populations of endemic plants and threatened animals, in some cases the only remaining wild populations.
context_section_description: In geographical terms, the Fiordland region contains the huge mountainous regions west of the line from Te Waewae Bay to Monowai to Te Anau, and includes the valleys of the Eglinton River and Hollyford River / Whakatipu Kā Tuka.  The area is almost identical to that of the Fiordland National Park, and is marked by U-shaped valleys and fiords along the coast and steep mountains with foundations of hard rocks like gneiss, schist, granite and diorite, with the softer rock having been carved out by multiple glaciations.  Fiordland contains New Zealand's oldest known plutonic (igneous) rocks and is dominated by the southernmost extent of the Southern Alps as the peaks reduce in height from north to south.
  The tallest mountain in the Fiordland region is Mount Tutoko at 2,723 metres (8,934 ft), one of several peaks over 2,000 meters in the Darren Mountains.  Southeast of this area, there are only a handful of peaks reaching 2,000 meters, however due to the rainy weather with cold winters and lack of hot summer temperatures, even these mountains contain glaciers and peaks with permanent snow cover.  The southernmost glacier is situated on Caroline Peak, which only reaches 1,704 metres (5,591 ft), and in the southwest of Fiordland the altitude for permanent snowfields lowers to under 1,500 metres (4,900 ft).
  The past glaciation's deep carving out of the landscape has also resulted in fiord-like arms in Lake Manapouri and Lake Te Anau, and on the coast managed to cause several large chunks of the mainland becoming cut off.  The largest of these uninhabited offshore islands are Resolution Island and Secretary Island, and are important conservation sites, particularly as sanctuaries for endangered native birds.
caption: Snow regularly falls to low altitudes in winter
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