Geothermal power is also a significant generator of electricity, with several large stations located across the Taupō Volcanic Zone in the North Island. The majority of the country’s electricity supply is generated from hydroelectric power, with major schemes on the Waikato, Waitaki and Clutha / Mata-Au rivers, as well as at Manapouri. New Zealand’s wine industry has followed a similar trend to dairy, the number of vineyards doubling over the same period, overtaking wool exports for the first time in 2007. In 2017, international visitor arrivals were expected to increase at a rate of 5.4% annually up to 2022. Tourism plays a significant role in the economy, contributing $12.9 billion (or 5.6%) to New Zealand’s total GDP and supporting 7.5% of the total workforce in 2016. The service sector is the largest sector in the economy, followed by manufacturing and construction and then farming and raw material extraction.
Economy
Queenstown is the ideal hub for your South Island adventure. Let New Zealand’s natural beauty inspire your next adventure! What current events are happening in New Zealand? How big is the New Zealand economy?
- Since 1876, various councils have administered local areas under legislation determined by the central government.
- Despite the United States’s suspension of ANZUS obligations, the treaty remained in effect between New Zealand and Australia, whose foreign policy has followed a similar historical trend.
- New Zealand has an advanced market economy, ranked 16th in the 2022update Human Development Index, and fourth in the 2022update Index of Economic Freedom.
- Conditions vary from wet and cold on South Island’s west coast to dry and continental a short distance away across the mountains and subtropical in the northern reaches of North Island.
- New Zealand Sign Language was reported to be understood by 22,986 people (0.5%); it became one of New Zealand’s official languages in 2006.
- New Zealand has been described as a middle power in the Asia-Pacific region, and an emerging power.
- Your account can be banned permanently if your posts or comments have any red flags until you can prove to one of the moderators that you’re not a minor.
Mild fetishes are allowed, but must be mentioned in the title and be marked spoiler
The government has negotiated settlements of these grievances with many iwi, although Māori claims to the foreshore and seabed proved controversial in the 2000s. A Māori protest movement developed, which criticised Eurocentrism and worked for greater recognition of Māori culture and of the Treaty of Waitangi. New Zealand experienced increasing prosperity following the Second World War, and Māori began to leave their traditional rural life and move to the cities in search of work.
The New Zealand Post Office had a monopoly over telecommunications in New Zealand until 1987 when Telecom New Zealand was formed, initially as a state-owned enterprise and then privatised in 1990. Railways run the length of the country, although most lines now carry freight rather than passengers. The state-owned enterprise KiwiRail now operates the railways, with the exception of commuter services in Auckland and Wellington, which are operated by Auckland One Rail and Transdev Wellington respectively. State-owned Transpower operates the high-voltage transmission grids in the North and South Islands, as well as the Inter-Island HVDC link connecting the two together.
Early in the 20th century, New Zealand was involved in world affairs, fighting in the First and Second World Wars and suffering through the Great Depression. The British government’s residual legislative powers were later removed by the Constitution Act 1986, and final rights of appeal to British courts were abolished in 2003. In 1907, at the request of the New Zealand Parliament, King Edward VII proclaimed New Zealand a Dominion within the British Empire, reflecting its self-governing status. In 1893, New Zealand was the first nation in the world to grant all women the right to vote and pioneered the adoption of compulsory arbitration between employers and unions in 1894. Following concerns that the South Island might form a separate colony, premier Alfred Domett moved a resolution to transfer the capital from Auckland to a locality near Cook Strait.
New Zealand participated at the Summer Olympics in 1908 and 1912 as a joint team with Australia, before first participating on its own in 1920. The Polynesian sport of waka ama racing has experienced a resurgence of interest in New Zealand since the 1980s. New Zealand is known for its extreme sports, adventure tourism and strong mountaineering tradition, as seen in the success of notable New Zealander Sir Edmund Hillary summiting Mount Everest first. Golf, netball, tennis and cricket have the highest rates of adult participation, while netball, rugby union and football (soccer) are particularly popular among young people. A hāngī is a traditional Māori method of cooking food using heated rocks buried in a pit oven that is still used for large groups on special occasions, such as tangihanga. New Zealand yields produce from land and sea—most crops and livestock, such as maize, potatoes and pigs, were gradually introduced by the early European settlers.
It is also called Aotearoa or the «Land of the Long White Cloud» in the language of the Maori (rhymes with «dowry»), the Polynesian people who settled the islands four centuries before the first Europeans arrived. New Zealand is an island country located in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. The country comprises two main islands—the North and the South Island—and a number of small islands, some of them hundreds of miles from the main group. New Zealand, island country in the South Pacific Ocean, the southwesternmost part of Polynesia. New Zealand’s population today is concentrated to the north of the country, with around 76.4% of the population living in the North Island and 23.6% in the South Island as of June 2025. New Zealand conservationists have pioneered several methods to help threatened wildlife recover, including island sanctuaries, pest control, wildlife translocation, fostering, and ecological restoration of islands and other protected areas.
He named that area Murderers’ Bay, and called the country Staten Landt. DNA mapping of their Maori descendants indicates links to the indigenous people of Taiwan. The relative proximity of New Zealand to Antarctica has made South Island a gateway of sorts for scientific expeditions and tourist excursions to the icebound continent. Over 75 percent of the forest cover has been burnt or felled, and the land converted into pasture. It also has a diverse range of birds, including the flightless moa (now extinct) and the kiwi, the kakapo, and the takahē, all of which are endangered. Evergreens such as the giant kauri and southern beech dominate the forests.
A 2017 human rights report by the United States Department of State noted that the New Zealand government generally respected the rights of individuals, but voiced concerns regarding the social status of the Māori population. New Zealand’s geographic isolation for 80 million years and island biogeography has influenced evolution of the country’s species of animals, fungi and plants. Snowfall is common in the eastern and southern parts of the South Island and mountain areas across the country.
The government sold its telecommunications company, railway network, a number of radio stations, and two financial institutions. The formal relationship with the U.S. changed, in 1986, however, after the Labour government adopted an anti-nuclear position, which ended visits of American warships. New Zealand is a party to the ANZUS security treaty between Australia, New Zealand, and the U.S.
New Zealand Economy
- Exports account for 24% of its output, making New Zealand vulnerable to international commodity prices and global economic slowdowns.
- The service sector is the largest sector in the economy, followed by manufacturing and construction and then farming and raw material extraction.
- Those of full or part-Maori ancestry comprise about 15 percent while most of the remainder are of Asian and Pacific Island origin.
- The Polynesian sport of waka ama racing has experienced a resurgence of interest in New Zealand since the 1980s.
- Before humans arrived, an estimated 80% of the land was covered in forest, with only high alpine, wet, infertile and volcanic areas without trees.
This rule was made to prevent the subreddit from being flooded by request posts. You can still ask artists for porn of your avatar, but do not make a post of it. If you post any porn of an avatar that’s confirmed to be owned by a minor, it will be removed. Your account can be banned permanently if your posts or comments have any red flags until you can prove to one of the moderators that you’re not a minor. Anyone can view, post, and comment to this community
In September 2020 Statistics New Zealand reported that the population had climbed above 5 million people in September 2019, according to population estimates based on the 2018 census.n 9 The road and rail networks in the two main islands are linked by roll-on/roll-off ferries between Wellington and Picton, operated by Interislander (part of KiwiRail) and Bluebridge. In the year to June 2018, dairy products accounted for 17.7% ($14.1 billion) of betista casino login total exports, and the country’s largest company, Fonterra, controls almost one-third of the international dairy trade. The increase of this since the 1960s led to the formation of the Pasifika New Zealander pan-ethnic group, the fourth-largest ethnic grouping in the country.
The main subreddit
It is the sole home, for example, of the long-beaked, flightless kiwi, the ubiquitous nickname for New Zealanders. Niue and the Cook Islands are self-governing states in free association with New Zealand. New Zealand is ranked 5th in the International Cricket Council Men’s Test Team Rankings 2025 with a rating of 100. The All Blacks, the national rugby union team, are the most successful in the history of international rugby.
Since human arrival, almost half of the country’s vertebrate species have become extinct, including at least 51 birds, three frogs, three lizards, one freshwater fish, and one bat. More penguin species are found in New Zealand than in any other country, with 13 of the world’s 18 penguin species. The flora and fauna of New Zealand were originally thought to have originated from New Zealand’s fragmentation off from Gondwana; however, more recent evidence postulates species resulted from dispersal.
The 1923 and 1926 Imperial Conferences decided that New Zealand should be allowed to negotiate its own political treaties, and the first commercial treaty was ratified in 1928 with Japan. During the period of the New Zealand colony, Britain was responsible for external trade and foreign relations. The Ross Dependency is New Zealand’s territorial claim in Antarctica, where it operates the Scott Base research facility.
Health New Zealand is charged with working alongside the Public Health Agency to manage the provision of healthcare services in New Zealand. Health New Zealand – Te Whatu Ora is the primary publicly funded healthcare system of New Zealand. As of 2023update, New Zealand allocated about 9.6 percent of its GDP to healthcare, slightly above the OECD average of 8.8 percent. The OECD’s Programme for International Student Assessment ranks New Zealand as the 28th best in the OECD for maths, 13th best for science, and 11th best for reading. In 2021, in the population aged 25–64, 13% had no formal qualification, 21% had a school qualification, 28% had a tertiary certificate or diploma, and 35% have a bachelor’s degree or higher. There are 13 school years and attending state (public) schools is free to New Zealand citizens and permanent residents from a person’s 5th birthday to the end of the calendar year following their 19th birthday.
Government and politics
About 82% of New Zealand’s indigenous vascular plants are endemic, covering 1,944 species across 65 genera. Physical isolation has caused biological isolation, resulting in a dynamic evolutionary ecology with examples of distinctive plants and animals as well as populations of widespread species. Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch all receive a yearly average of more than 2,000 hours of sunshine. Of the seven largest cities, Christchurch is the driest, receiving on average only 618 millimetres (24.3 in) of rain per year. Conditions vary sharply across regions, from extremely wet on the West Coast of the South Island to semi-arid in Central Otago and the Mackenzie Basin of inland Canterbury and subtropical in Northland.
New Zealand administers the South Pacific island group of Tokelau and claims a section of the Antarctic continent. The capital city is Wellington and the largest urban area Auckland; both are located on the North Island. New Zealand is a remote land—one of the last sizable territories suitable for habitation to be populated and settled—and lies more than 1,000 miles (1,600 km) southeast of Australia, its nearest neighbour.
The southern and southwestern parts of the South Island have a cooler and cloudier climate, with around 1,400–1,600 hours. Oceania is a wider region encompassing the Australian continent, New Zealand, and various island countries in the Pacific Ocean that are not included in the seven-continent model. The plateau also hosts the country’s largest lake, Lake Taupō, nestled in the caldera of one of the world’s most active supervolcanoes. Fiordland’s steep mountains and deep fiords record the extensive ice age glaciation of this southwestern corner of the South Island.
Because of its far-flung outlying islands and long coastline, the country has extensive marine resources. Since 1937, the islands are uninhabited except for about six people at Raoul Island station. In 1830, mapmakers began to use «North» and «South» on their maps to distinguish the two largest islands, and by 1907, this was the accepted norm. Māori had several traditional names for the two main islands, including Te Ika-a-Māui (‘the fish of Māui’) for the North Island and Te Waipounamu (‘the waters of greenstone’) or Te Waka o Aoraki (‘the canoe of Aoraki’) for the South Island.