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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 (Māori: Aotearoa [aɔˈtɛaɾɔa]) 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.

The slender smooth-hound or gollumshark (Gollum attenuatus) is a species of ground shark in the family Pseudotriakidae. It is endemic to the waters around New Zealand, where it is usually found close to the bottom over the continental slope at depths of 300–600 m (980–1,970 ft). An extremely slim, plain brownish shark reaching 1.1 m (3.6 ft) in length, the slender smooth-hound can be identified by its broad, flattened head with a long, distinctively bell-shaped snout. Its mouth is angular with short furrows at the corners, and contains a very high number of tooth rows in both jaws. Its two dorsal fins are roughly equal in size.

The diet of the slender smooth-hound is diverse, but dominated by small, benthic bony fishes and decapod crustaceans. It exhibits a specialized form of aplacental viviparity with oophagy: the females produce a single capsule in each uterus that contains 30–80 ova, of which one ovum develops into an embryo that consumes the rest of the ova and stores the yolk material in its external yolk sac. The growing embryo is mainly sustained by this yolk sac during gestation, though it may be additionally supplied with histotroph ("uterine milk") produced by the mother. The typical litter size is two pups, one per uterus. The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) has assessed the slender smooth-hound as Least Concern; it is taken as fishery bycatch but not in great numbers, and furthermore large portions of its range see minimal fishing activity. (Full article...)

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The following are images from various New Zealand-related articles on Wikipedia.

More Did you know? - show different entries

... that during the construction of Fairfield Bridge (pictured) a burial cave was found with the heads of several dead Māori people?

... that the Hatepe eruption was the most recent eruption of Lake Taupo, which ejected some 120 cubic kilometres of material, can be reliably dated to 186 CE by meteorological phenomena described by Fan Ye in China and by Herodian in Rome?

... that the Pink and White Terraces (Otukapuarangi in Māori) were considered a natural wonder until they were destroyed by a violent volcanic eruption in 1886?

... that the snow grasses can be several centuries old?


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The Catlins (sometimes referred to as The Catlins Coast) comprises an area in the southeastern corner of the South Island of New Zealand. The area lies between Balclutha and Invercargill, straddling the boundary between the Otago and Southland regions. It includes the South Island's southernmost point, Slope Point.

The Catlins, a rugged, sparsely populated area, features a scenic coastal landscape and dense temperate rainforest, both of which harbour many endangered species of birds. Its exposed location leads to its frequently wild weather and heavy ocean swells, which are an attraction to big-wave surfers.

Ecotourism has become of growing importance in the Catlins economy, which otherwise relies heavily on dairy farming and fishing. The region's early whaling and forestry industries have long since died away, along with the coastal shipping that led to several tragic shipwrecks. Only some 1,200 people now live in the area, many of them in the settlement of Owaka. (Full article...)

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New Zealand Parliamentary Buildings
New Zealand Parliamentary Buildings

New Zealand Parliament Buildings (Māori: Ngā whare Paremata) house the New Zealand Parliament and are on a 45,000 square metre site at the northern end of Lambton Quay, Wellington. From north to south, they are the Parliamentary Library building (1899); the Edwardian neoclassical-style Parliament House (1922); the executive wing, called "The Beehive" (1977); and Bowen House (in use since 1991). Currently, an additional building for housing Members of Parliament is under construction, which is expected to be completed in 2026. Whilst most of the individual buildings are outstanding for different reasons, the overall setting that has been achieved "has little aesthetic or architectural coherence". (Full article...)

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