New Zealand

New Zealand
Aotearoa

Flag of New Zealand Flag of New Zealand
Principal languages	English, Māori
Capital	Wellington
Largest city	Auckland
Queen of New Zealand	Elizabeth II
Prime minister	Helen Clark
Area  - Total  - % water	Ranked 73rd 268,680 km² 2.1%
Population  - Total (2004)  - Density	Ranked 120th 4,061,300 15/km²
Independence	1907
Currency	New Zealand dollar
Time zone	Universal Time +12
National anthem	God Defend New Zealand
Internet TLD	.nz
Calling Country Code	+64

New Zealand is a country of two large islands and a number of smaller islands in the south-western Pacific Ocean. The nation also came to be dubbed Aotearoa or the "Land of the Long White Cloud," as use of the Maori language was increasingly promoted. New Zealand is separated from Australia to the northwest by the Tasman Sea, some 2,000 km across. Closest neighbours to the north are New Caledonia, Fiji and Tonga. The population is mostly of European descent, with Māori being the largest minority. Non-Māori Polynesian and Asian peoples are also significant minorities, especially in the cities.

Geography

File:Satellite image of New Zealand in December 2002.jpg

A satellite image of New Zealand. Lake Taupo and Mount Ruapehu are visible in the centre of the North Island. The Southern Alps and the rain shadow they create are clearly visible on the South Island

The two main islands are called the North and South Islands in English, or Te-Ika-a-Maui and Te Wai Pounamu in Māori. There are a number of smaller islands. The total land area, 268,680 km², is slightly less than Japan and a little more than the United Kingdom. The country extends more than 1,600 km along its main, north-north-east axis. Stewart Island/Rakiura; Waiheke Island, in Auckland's Hauraki Gulf; Great Barrier Island, east of the Hauraki Gulf; and the Chatham Islands, named Rekohu by Morioriare the most significant smaller inhabited islands. The country has the fifth-largest Exclusive Economic Zone in the world covering over four million square kilometres of ocean, more than 15 times its land area.

The South Island is largest, and is divided along its length by the Southern Alps, the highest peak of which is Aoraki/Mount Cook, at 3,754 m. There are 18 peaks of more than 3,000 m on the South Island. The North Island is less mountainous, and is volcanic. The tallest North Island mountain, Mount Ruapehu (2,797 m), is an active cone volcano. The dramatic and varied landscape has made it a popular location for the production of television programs and films, including the Lord of the Rings trilogy.

Aoraki/Mount Cook is the tallest mountain in New Zealand

The climate is mild, cool-temperate to warm-temperate. Temperatures rarely fall below 0°C. or rise above 30°C. Conditions vary from wet and cold on the west coast of the South Island to dry and continental in the Mackenzie Basin of inland Canterbury and subtropical in the Northland. Christchurch city is the driest, receiving only 640 mm of rain per year. Auckland city, the wettest, receives about three times that amount.

History

Evidence so far indicates that human settlement began in the 13th century C.E., and those first settlers, the Maori people, comprised up to 200 men and women from East Polynesia who arrived in a number of canoes. DNA mapping of their Maori descendants indicate links to the indigenous people of Taiwan. The Moriori people of the Chatham Islands, located 800km east of New Zealand, multiplied from a group of New Zealand Polynesians who transferred themselves there by canoe some time in the 14th or 15th centuries.

The abundance of a large flightless bird, the moa, the drumsticks of which were as big as a leg of beef, was a ready food source, and soon was hunted to extinction. Sweet potato (kumara) cultivation, fishing, the gathering of shellfish, berries and other raw foods from the forest, along with native birds, led to the growth of settlements.

Tribal culture developed 16th century. Individuals identified with their family (whanau) and tribe (iwi), membership of which was traced to the canoe an ancestor arrived in. There were paramount chiefs (ariki), chiefs (rangatira), commoners (tutua) and slaves. Both aristocrats and commoners could increase their status (mana) by becoming experts (tohunga) in activities of physical, artistic or spiritual nature. The country was divided into tribal districts (rohe). Ownership of an area was established by length of occupation, active use of resources or conquest.

“Utu,” a Maori word meaning “reciprocity” or “revenge," regulated behaviour. Failure to seek authorization to be in an area, defeat in battle or a grievance of any sort would be grounds to seek revenge and trigger bloody battles in which whole villages could be wiped out. Conquered peoples were killed, eaten or enslaved. Cannibalism continued until the 1830s. By the 18th century, the Maori population reached about 110,000.

Abel Janszoon Tasman, the commander of a two-ship Dutch East India Company trading expedition, was the first European to visit. An encounter with two double-hulled canoes full of Maori warriors on December 18, 1642, led to the deaths of four Dutch men. Tasman sailed away without setting foot on land. He named that area Murderers’ Bay, and named the country Staten Landt. This was changed by Dutch cartographers to Nova Zeelandia, after the Dutch province of Zeeland.

The next European contact was by Lieutenant James Cook, of the British Royal Navy, who sailed south from Tahiti where, in July 1769, he observed the transit of the planet Venus across the Sun. In a six-month journey around the archipelago, Cook met Maori on dozens of occasions, and was able to communicate with them thanks to the presence of a Tahitian chief who had learned some English.

Cook created a considerably accurate map of the main islands, as well as the east coast of Australia, thus dispelling the myth of Terra Australis Incognita. He named the country New Zealand. He recognized the relationship between the Maori and Tahitian people. His three voyages and four visits to the country provided a body of knowledge for scientists, historians and anthropologists for years to come. He introduced Maori to metal (nails), potatoes, turnips, cannons, muskets and his crew introduced venereal disease.

The year of Cook's first visit was the year French explorer Jean de Surville conducted the first Christian service in New Zealand waters on Christmas Day.

The first Europeans to live in New Zealand were seamen who jumped ship, convicts who had escaped from British penal coloniesin Australia, sealers, whalers and traders. Sealing for skins in the south created the first European commercial operation in the 1790s, and the first European community in 1793. Ocean whaling, to provide oil for lamps in Europe, started in New Zealand in the 1790s and peaked in the 1830s.

Timber and flax attracted traders, and led to tribes acquiring of muskets, initially for hunting, but inevitably for inter-tribal fighting known as the Musket Wars. A flood of cheap European weapons became the main item traded for flax, timber, pork or potatoes. The fiercest fighting occurred from 1822-36. More than 20,000 were killed over 30 years. Tribes were displaced. There was much cruelty after battles. Feasting on corpses could go on for days. The last of these wars was fought in 1840.

The first missionary was Samuel Marsden sent by the Church Missionary Society, in 1814, to evangelise the Maori people. Maori had always been a spiritual people, so once bi-lingualism made discussion possible, it did not take a huge leap of faith for Maori to believe in a single God. Successive missionaries can take the credit for brokering peace between warring tribes, and ending slavery and cannibalism.

The Treaty of Waitangi was concluded between the British Queen and Maori chiefs in early 1840. Missionary activity, requests from tribes for protection, and a plan by the New Zealand Company to buy land from tribes and to sell to colonists prompted the British Government to send Governor William Hobson to conclude a treaty. In the three-sentence treaty, the chiefs cede to the Queen, government of their lands; the Queen acknowledges that the chiefs and tribes own their lands, and if they wish to sell, must sell to a Queen-appointed agent; and the Queen promises to protect Maori people as British subjects. Forty five chiefs were the first to sign on February 6, 1840. As further chiefs signed, Hobson proclaimed British sovereignty over the whole country on May 21, 1840.

But the first English colonists had arrived before the treaty was signed, and large areas of land had already been sold by chiefs who did not appreciate that under English land laws, once land is sold it is gone forever. Because the unsophisticated Maori language lacked words for “sovereignty” and “government,” it was later argued that the chiefs had not knowingly ceded sovereignty to the Queen. As land was surveyed and developed, skirmishing escalated into a series of armed clashes, known as the Maori Wars, the NZ Wars, or the Land Wars, that continued until 1872.

New Zealand was administered as a part of the colony of New South Wales, until it became separate. The third governor, Sir George Grey, was the first governor with the resources to enforce the rule of law with military strength. His Constitution Act of 1853 set up a national system of representative government, and a prime minister. Voters had to be male owners of property. The Governor retained responsibility for Maori affairs. Foreign policy was controlled by Britain. From 1867, all Maori men could vote, and from 1893, all women could vote. The ballot was secret from 1870, and the property qualification was abolished in 1879.

The first capital was in the Bay of Islands, in the far north, but shortly afterwards moved to Auckland. European settlement progressed rapidly, and by 1860 Europeans outnumbered Maoris. The discovery of gold in Central Otago in 1861 sparked concerns that the South Island would form a separate colony, so in 1865 the capital was moved to the more central city of Wellington.

New Zealand became an independent dominion in 1907, by royal proclamation. Full independence was granted with the Statute of Westminster in 1931, which was adopted by the New Zealand Parliament in 1947. Since then, New Zealand has been a sovereign constitutional monarchy within the Commonwealth of Nations.

In 1975 the Treaty of Waitangi Act established the Waitangi Tribunal, charged with hearing claims of Crown violations of the Treaty of Waitangi dating back to 1840. Some Māori tribes and the Moriori never signed the treaty.

Politics

New Zealand is the only country where all the highest offices in the land are occupied by women, including the sovereign, the governor-general, the prime minister, the speaker of the house of representatives, and the chief justice.

The Prime Minister is Helen Clark of the New Zealand Labour Party. She has served two complete terms as Prime Minister and has begun her third.

New Zealand is a parliamentary democracy. The executive branch comprises Head of State Queen Elizabeth II of Great Britain, represented by Governor General Dame Silvia Cartwright, the Prime Minister, and a cabinet of ministers appointed by the Governor General on the recommendation of the Prime Minister.

The legislative branch is the House of Representatives, or parliament, comprising 120 seats filled by 69 members elected by popular vote in single-member electorates, including seven Maori electorates, and 51 proportional members chosen from party lists, all serving three-year terms.

New Zealand also includes the Cook Islands and Niue, which are entirely self-governing; Tokelau, which is moving towards self-government, and Ross Dependency, New Zealand's claim in Antarctica.

Race relations

Issues to do with sovereignty and land ownership remained unresolved, and, for a long time, invisible while Māori continued to live in rural communities. The Kotahitanga movement of the late 19th and early 20th centuries showed the resilience of Māori culture. Maori politician Sir Āpirana Ngata fostered the development of Maori land. Te Puea Hērangi revitalised the Māori King movement. Wiremu Rātana founded the Rātana Church in the early 1920s.

After 1945, many Maori people relocated to towns and cities to work. During the propserous 1950s and 1960s, New Zealand prided itself on racial harmony. But the emergence of young Maori leaders, in the early 1970s, who began to promote the use of Maori language and discuss sovereignty issues, together with a tightening economy, put strains of relations between Maori and non-Maori. The Waitangi Tribunal was set up in 1975 to consider alleged breaches of the treaty.

The issue of sporting contacts with apartheid South Africa divided the nation and led affected domestic race relations. During the 1981 Springbok rugby tour, police and protestors fought street battles. After the tour, some protest leaders turned to Maori issues and agitated for compensation for land confiscations and alleged treaty breaches. In 1985, the tribunal was empowered to investigate grievances back to 1840.

From the 1970s, efforts to foster the Māori language and culture led to New Zealand society being promoted as bicultural. But with increasing numbers of migrants arriving from the Pacific islands in the 1970s, from South Africa after the collapse of apartheid, Zimbabwe, Somalia, the Arab countries, and Asian countries, it was clear New Zealand had become multicultural. After the September 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Centre towers in New York, New Zealand was seen as a safe destination and immigration, largely from the third world, skyrocketed.

Foreign relations and military

For its first hundred years, New Zealand followed Britain's lead on foreign policy. "Where she goes, we go; where she stands, we stand," said Prime Minister Michael Savage in declaring war on Germany in 1939. However, Britain's inability to protect New Zealand from Japanese aggression in World War II led New Zealand to come under the influence of the United States for the generation following the war.

New Zealand has traditionally worked closely with Australia, whose foreign policy followed a similar historical trend. In turn, many Pacific Islands such as Samoa have looked to New Zealand's lead.

New Zealand is a party to the ANZUS security treaty between Australia, New Zealand and the United States. The formal relationship with the United States changed when the Labour Government of David Lange adopted an anti-nuclear position, which ended visits of U.S. warships which may have been nuclear-armed or powered. In 1986 the United States suspended its treaty security obligations to New Zealand pending the restoration of port access. The New Zealand Nuclear Free Zone, Disarmament and Arms Control Act of 1987 prohibits the stationing of nuclear weapons on the territory of New Zealand and the entry into New Zealand waters of nuclear armed or propelled ships. This legislation remains a source of contention, has become an issue that few New Zealand politicians are willing to debate, and remains the basis for the United States' continued suspension of treaty obligations.

New Zealand fought in the Second Boer War, World War I (100,000 served and 17,000 were killed — the highest casualties per head of population of any combatant nation), World War II (204,000 served, 11,500 killed), the Korean War (1550 served, 38 killed), the Malayan Emergency (and committed troops, fighters and bombers to the subsequent confrontation with Indonesia), the Vietnam War, the Gulf War, and the Afghanistan War, and has briefly sent a unit of army engineers to help with rebuilding Iraqi infrastructure.

New Zealand considers its own national defence needs to be modest; it dismantled its air combat capability in 2001. New Zealand has contributed forces to peacekeeping missions, in Cyprus, Somalia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Sinai, Angola, Cambodia, the Iran/Iraq border, Bougainville and East Timor.

New Zealand maintains a strong profile on environmental protection, human rights, and free trade, particularly for agriculture.

Environmentalism

New Zealand has promoted an image of being clean and green. The lush “native bush” has an almost tropical feel. Huge kauri and tall trees known as podocarps tower over ferns and creepers, evoking a primeval scene. Such vegetation has links to the forests of Gondwana, the supercontinent of 190 million years ago. Before people arrived, New Zealand was a land of birds — over 120 species of geese, ducks, rails, moa, parrots, owls, wrens and other perching birds. Around 70 of these were found only in New Zealand. About a quarter were nocturnal, and many were giants.

In the 700 years since human arrival, over 75 per cent of the forest cover has been burnt or felled, and the land converted into pasture. Many bird species, including the giant moa, became extinct after the arrival of Polynesians, who brought dogs and rats, and Europeans, who introduced other rat species, ferrets, weasels, stoats, cats, pigs and more dogs.

Some species of birds managed to survive on offshore islands. Some conservationists recognised this and relocated threatened bird populations to these “arks,” which by the 21st century became a focus of conservation. Once introduced predators were exterminated, birdlife flourished again. Around 30 species are listed as endangered. The kiwi is also under threat. A curious bird, it cannot fly, has loose, hair-like feathers, long whiskers and is largely nocturnal.

The Department of Conservation was formed in 1987 integrating the Department of Lands and Survey, the Forest Service, and the Wildlife Service The department administers most Crown land in New Zealand. This is almost a third of New Zealand's land area, including national, forest and maritime parks, marine reserves, nearly 4000 reserves, river margins, some coastline, several hundred wetlands, and many offshore islands.The department works to save native theatened species, to manage pests and weeds, to care for marine life, and help landowners to preserve natural heritage. It also looks after historic sites on public conservation land. Providing for recreation is a big part of its core work, from managing family picnic sites to maintaining rugged backcountry tracks. The department also administers the Nature Heritage Fund and is responsible for rural fire control.

Environmental concerns opened a niche for The Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand, a which holds six seats in parliament. It focuses firstly on environmentalism, arguing that all other aspects of humanity will cease to be of concern if there is no environment to sustain it. Left-wing economics, progressive social policie participatory democracy, and non-violence make up the balance of its platform.

External territories

A map of New Zealand showing the major cities and towns

As a major South Pacific nation, New Zealand has a close working relationship with many of the smaller Pacific Island nations, and continues a political association with the Cook Islands, Niue, and Tokelau. New Zealand operates Scott Base in its Antarctic territory, the Ross Dependency. Other countries use Christchurch to support their Antarctic bases and the city is sometimes known as the "Gateway to Antarctica."

Flora and fauna

File:Kiwi.jpg

The Kiwi, a flightless bird, is one of New Zealand's most famous species and a national icon.

Because of its long isolation from the rest of the world, New Zealand has extraordinary flora and fauna. About 80 per cent of the flora only occurs in New Zealand, including more than 40 endemic genera. Podocarps, including the giant kauri and southern beech, dominate the forests. Other vegetation types are grass and tussock, usually in sub-alpine areas, and low shrublands between grasslands and forests.

Until the arrival of the first humans, 80 percent of the land was forested and two species of bat were the only non-marine mammals. A diverse range of birds, including the flightless moa, now extinct, and kiwi, the kakapo, and the takahē, which are all endangered, inhabited the forests. Unique birds capable of flight include the Haast's eagle, the world's largest bird of prey before it became extinct, and the large parrots known as the kaka and the kea. Reptiles include skinks and geckos and the tuatara. There are no snakes, but there are many species of insects— including the weta, which may grow as large as a common mouse.

Economy

File:DowntownAucklandNight.jpg

Auckland at night, with the Sky Tower in the background

Since 1984, after reforms by then finance minister Sir Roger Douglas, successive governments transformed New Zealand from a highly protectionist and regulated economy to a liberalised free-market economy. The Government sold its telecommunications company, railway network, a number of radio stations, and two financial institutions. The businesses the Government retained, collectively known as State-Owned Enterprises, are operated as stand-alone businesses that are required to operate profitably.

An economic bubble developed in the New Zealand stock market starting in 1984. This burst in 1987, and the total value of the market halved within a year (it has still to recover this lost value). A period of poor economic growth lasted until the mid-1990s, when the government began a program of immigration to boost GDP. A favourable rate of currency exchange and strong demand for housing buoyed the economy for the next six years, until inflationary pressures in 2005 caused the central Reserve Bank to raise interest rates.

The government's economic objectives, from 1999 to 2002, aimed to move up from the lower ranks of the OECD countries, to pursue free-trade agreements, close the gaps between Maori and others, and build a "knowledge economy." In 2004, it began discussing free trade with China, one of the first countries to do so.

New Zealand is dependent on trade—particularly in agricultural products—, and has been affected by global economic slowdowns and slumps in commodity prices. Since agricultural exports are sensitive to currency values and a large percentage of consumer goods are imported, any changes in the value of the New Zealand dollar has a strong impact on the economy. There had been some discussion about adopting Australian currency or the U.S. dollar.

In 2005, agriculture made up 4.7 percent of gross domestic product, industry 27.8 percent and services 67.5 percent.

Primary export industries are agriculture (sheep, cattle, dairy), horticulture (apples, kiwifruit), fishing and forestry. Residential construction is a big part of the building industry. During the 1990s tourism became the country’s leading earner of foreign exchange. export education industries flourished. The trilogy The Lord of the Rings put New Zealand’s film industry on the world stage. Vineyards proliferated since the 1990s in Marlborough, Hawke’s Bay and Gisborne, focusing on high-quality sauvignon blanc and pinot noir.

Demographics

New Zealand has a population of about 4.1 million. About 70 percent of the population are of European descent. Maori people, in the nineteenth century, referred to Europeans as "Pākeha." This term has continued, and some Māori use it to refer to all non-Māori New Zealanders. Most European New Zealanders are of English, Scottish, Welsh, Irish and Dutch ancestry. Māori people are the second-largest ethnic group (the percentage of the population of full or part-Māori ancestry is 14.7 percent; those who checked only Māori are 7.9 percent). Between the 1996 and 2001 censuses, the number of people of Asian origin (6.6 percent) overtook the number of people of Pacific Island origin (6.5 percent) (note that the census allowed multiple ethnic affiliations). New Zealand is positive about immigration and is committed to increasing its population by about 1 percent per annum. At present, migrants from the U.K. constitute the largest single group (30 percent), but new migrants are drawn from many nations, increasingly from East Asia.

Religion

Christianity is the predominant religion in New Zealand, although nearly 40 percent of the population has no religious affiliation. The main Christian denominations are Anglican, Presbyterian, Roman Catholic and Methodist. There are also significant numbers who identify themselves with Pentecostal and Baptist churches and with the LDS (Mormon) church. The New Zealand-based Ratana church has many adherents among Māori. A wave of new religious movements, including The Divine Light Mission, Hare Krishna, Children of God, Bahai, and the Unification Church of the Reverend Sun Myung Moon arrived in the early 1970s. Increasing immigration since the late 1990s brought other significant minority religions including Hinduism, Buddhism, and Islam.

Culture

Contemporary, Pākehā New Zealand has a diverse contemporary culture with influences from British, Irish, and Māori cultures, along with those of other European cultures (such as Dutch, Dalmatian, and Polish) and - more recently - Polynesian (including Samoan, Tongan, Niuean, Cook Islands Māori, Tahitian, and Hawai'ian) and Southern and Southeast Asian (Indian, Chinese, Korean, Cambodian, and Japanese) cultures. There were many people from Scotland amongst the early British settlers and elements of their culture persist; New Zealand is said to have more bagpipe bands than Scotland. Cultural links between New Zealand and the UK are maintained by a common language, sustained migration from the UK and the fact that many young New Zealanders spend time in the UK on their "overseas experience (OE)".

The Government promotes Maori culture by naming government departments in both English and Maori, by insisting on traditional Maori welcomes (powhiri) at Government functions and state school prizegivings, by allowing Maori spiritual beliefs special status if development work is to have any impact on the environment, and by having tribes run welfare services targeted at Maori people.

The Māori language (Te Reo Māori) was used only in a few remote areas in the post war years but it is now being promoted, with generous state support for Māori language schools and a Māori language television channel. Out of the four television channels, Māori television is the only TV channel where the majority of it's prime time content is delivered in the Māori language with English sub-titles. Māori television is also the only television channel which tries to generate new content in Māori, and, subtitle English programmes in to Māori. Māori has been made an official language equal to English.

New Zealand's landscape has appeared in television programs and films. The television series Hercules: The Legendary Journeys and Xena: Warrior Princess were filmed around Auckland. The Lord of the Rings trilogy in various locations around the country. Mount Taranaki was used as a stand-in for Mount Fuji in The Last Samurai. The latest of such international films to be released are King Kong and The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.

Sport

New Zealand's most popular sports are rugby union, cricket, netball, lawn bowling, soccer (perhaps surprisingly, the most popular football code in terms of participation in NZ) and rugby league. Also popular are golf, tennis, cycling and a variety of water sports, particularly sailing, whitewater kayaking, surf lifesaving skills and rowing. In the latter, New Zealand enjoyed an extraordinary Magic 45 minutes when winning four successive gold medals at the 2005 world championships. Snow sports such as skiing and snowboarding are also popular. Equestrian sportsmen and sportswomen make their mark in the world, with Mark Todd being chosen international "Horseman of the Century."

The country is recognised for achieving well on a medals-to-population ratio at Olympic Games and Commonwealth Games.

Rugby union

Rugby union is closely linked to New Zealand's national identity. The national rugby team is called the All Blacks and has the best winning record of any national team in the world, including being the inaugural winner of the World Cup in 1987. The style of name has been followed in naming the national team in other sports — for instance, the nation's basketball team is known as the Tall Blacks. New Zealand is to host the 2011 Rugby Union World Cup. New Zealand's national sporting colours are not the colours of its flag, but are black and white (silver). The silver fern is a national emblem worn by New Zealanders representing their country in sport. The All Blacks perform a traditional Maori war dance, or haka, before the start of international matches.

===Yachting, a leading nation in world yachting, especially open water long distance or around the world races. Round-the-world yachtsman, Sir Peter Blake was a national hero. In inshore yachting, Auckland hosted the last two America's Cup regattas (2000 and 2003). In 2000, Team New Zealand successfully defended the trophy they had won in 1995 in San Diego, which made them the only team in the history of the Cup to successfully defend a challenge other than a United States team, but in 2003 they lost to a team headed by Ernesto Bertarelli of Switzerland, whose Alinghi syndicate was skippered by Russell Coutts, the former skipper of Team New Zealand.

Team New Zealand will compete for the America's Cup at the next regatta in Valencia in 2007.

References:

King, Michael, The Penguin History of New Zealand, Penguin Books (NZ)Ltd, 2003

External links

• Te Ara, the Encyclopedia of New Zealand
• Te Puna Web Directory - A directory to New Zealand web sites
• Ministry for Culture and Heritage - includes information on flag, anthems and coat of arms.
• New Zealand Government Portal
• Travel guide to New Zealand from Wikitravel
• New Zealand weather
• NZHistory.net.nz New Zealand history website
• Statistics New Zealand - Official statistics.
• Tourism New Zealand
• www.zoomin.co.nz Maps of New Zealand

Credits

New World Encyclopedia writers and editors rewrote and completed the Wikipedia article in accordance with New World Encyclopedia standards. This article abides by terms of the Creative Commons CC-by-sa 3.0 License (CC-by-sa), which may be used and disseminated with proper attribution. Credit is due under the terms of this license that can reference both the New World Encyclopedia contributors and the selfless volunteer contributors of the Wikimedia Foundation. To cite this article click here for a list of acceptable citing formats.The history of earlier contributions by wikipedians is accessible to researchers here:

• New Zealand  ^history

The history of this article since it was imported to New World Encyclopedia:

• History of "New Zealand"

Note: Some restrictions may apply to use of individual images which are separately licensed.