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, 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...)

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Wellington Mounted Rifles Regiment at Awapuni Racecourse 8 August 1914

The Wellington Mounted Rifles Regiment was a mounted infantry regiment from New Zealand, raised for service during the First World War. It was assigned to the New Zealand Mounted Rifles Brigade, part of the New Zealand Expeditionary Force.

The regiment, with an establishment of twenty-six officers, 523 other ranks and 600 horses, was formed from three squadrons belonging to pre war Territorial Force regiments; the Queen Alexandra's 2nd (Wellington West Coast) Mounted Rifles, the 6th (Manawatu) Mounted Rifles and the 9th (Wellington East Coast) Mounted Rifles. It also included a small headquarters and, until 1916, a Maxim machine-gun section. The Maxim guns were withdrawn but the regiment's fire-power increased during the war, by the end of which each squadron had four Hotchkiss machine-guns, one per troop. (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 the sting of New Zealand's ongaonga or tree nettle can be fatal?

...that New Zealand's highest mountain is Aoraki/Mount Cook, at 3,754 metres?

...that while New Zealand rates number 5 on the list of total number of sheep produced, it has the highest number of sheep per-capita?

...that New Zealand’s longest serving Prime Minister was Richard Seddon?


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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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Lyttelton, New Zealand.
Lyttelton, New Zealand.

Lyttelton (Māori: Ōhinehou or Māori: Riritana) is a port town on the north shore of Lyttelton Harbour / Whakaraupō, at the northwestern end of Banks Peninsula and close to Christchurch, on the eastern coast of the South Island of New Zealand. (Full article...)

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