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Portal:New Zealand

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New Zealand
Aotearoa (Māori)
A map of the hemisphere centred on New Zealand, using an orthographic projection.
Location of New Zealand, including outlying islands, its territorial claim in the Antarctic, and Tokelau
ISO 3166 codeNZ

New Zealand is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island (Te Ika-a-Māui) and the South Island (Te Waipounamu)—and over 700 smaller islands. 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. 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.

A developed country, it was the first to introduce a minimum wage, and the first to give women the right to vote. It ranks very highly in international measures of quality of life, human rights, and it has one of the lowest levels of perceived corruption in the world. It retains visible levels of inequality, having structural disparities between its Māori and European populations. New Zealand underwent major economic changes during the 1980s, which transformed it from a protectionist to a liberalised free-trade economy. The service sector dominates the national economy, followed by the industrial sector, and agriculture; international tourism is also a significant source of revenue. New Zealand is a member of the United Nations, Commonwealth of Nations, ANZUS, UKUSA, Five Eyes, OECD, ASEAN Plus Six, Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation, the Pacific Community and the Pacific Islands Forum. It enjoys particularly close relations with the United States and is one of its major non-NATO allies; the United Kingdom; Samoa, Fiji, and Tonga; and with Australia, with a shared Trans-Tasman identity between the two countries stemming from centuries of British colonisation. (Full article...)

This is a Good article, an article that meets a core set of high editorial standards.

Mark Garry 'Hammer' Hammett (born 13 July 1972) is a New Zealand rugby union coach and former player. Having represented Canterbury provincially 76 times, and the Crusaders 81 times and the All Blacks 30 times – including 29 Test matches, Hammett later went on to coach both Canterbury and Crusaders as a forwards/assistant coach. He is currently on the assistant coach of the Highlanders in Super Rugby and the Tasman Makos in the Mitre 10 Cup. (Full article...)

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More Did you know? - show different entries

...that New Zealand palaeontologists refer to the last 330,000 years as the Haweran stage of the Wanganui epoch?

...that the North Island's Kaingaroa Forest is the largest plantation in the Southern Hemisphere?

...that Jacquemart Island in the Campbell Islands is New Zealand's southernmost island?

...that New Zealand native Mystacinidae bats spend much of their time on the ground and fold their wings into a leathery membrane when not in use?


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Captain William Hobson RN (26 September 1792 – 10 September 1842) was the first Governor of New Zealand and co-author of the Treaty of Waitangi.

In his Royal Navy career, he served in the Napoleonic wars and was involved in the suppression of piracy in the Caribbean. In 1836 he sailed HMS Rattlesnake to Australia where he spent several months surveying Port Phillip District (later Melbourne).

In 1837 he sailed to the Bay of Islands, New Zealand, in response to a request for help from James Busby, the British Resident, who felt threatened by wars between Māori tribes. He arrived on 26 May 1837 and helped to reduce the tensions. At the time, the British government recognised the sovereignty of the Māori people, as represented in the Declaration of the Independence of New Zealand of October 1835, which had been organised by Busby. Hobson returned to England and was appointed Lieutenant Governor and British consul to New Zealand (confirmed on 13 August 1839). He was instructed to purchase land "by fair and equal contracts."

Hobson arrived back in the Bay of Islands on 29 January 1840 (which is celebrated today as Auckland Anniversary Day) with a small group of officials and almost immediately drafted the Treaty of Waitangi, together with his secretary James Freeman and Busby. After obtaining signatures at the Bay of Islands, he travelled to Waitemata Harbour to obtain more signatures and survey a suitable location for a new capital. In November 1840 the Queen signed a royal charter for New Zealand to become a Crown colony separate from New South Wales. Hobson was sworn in as Governor and Commander in Chief on 3 May 1841. (Full article...)

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Stormy sunset over Waimakariri River basin, New Zealand
Stormy sunset over Waimakariri River basin, New Zealand

The Waimakariri River is one of the largest rivers in Canterbury, on the eastern coast of New Zealand's South Island. It flows for 151 kilometres (94 mi) in a generally southeastward direction from the Southern Alps across the Canterbury Plains to the Pacific Ocean. (Full article...)

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