The indigenous Māori named New Zealand Aotearoa, commonly translated as The Land of the Long White Cloud.
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New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses (the North Island and the South Island), and many smaller islands, most notably Stewart Island / Rakiura and the Chatham Islands. New Zealand is notable for its geographic isolation and situated about 2000 km
(1250miles) southeast of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and its closest neighbours to the north are New Caledonia, Fiji and Tonga.
Sport plays a major role in New Zealand's culture, with the rugby union being the unofficial national sport. Other popular sports include cricket, bowls, netball, soccer, motorsport, golf, swimming and tennis.
The early European settlers divided New Zealand into provinces. These were abolished in 1876 so that government could be centralised, for financial reasons. As a result, New Zealand has no separately represented subnational entities such as provinces, states or territories, apart from local government. However the spirit of the provinces lives on, and there is fierce rivalry exhibited in sporting and cultural events.
The regions are:
Northland
Auckland
Waikato
Bay of Plenty
Gisborne
Hawke's Bay
Taranaki
Manawatu-Wanganui
Wellington
Marlborough
Nelson
Tasman
West Coast
Canterbury
Otago
Southland
Chatham Islands
The population is mostly of European descent, with the indigenous Māori being the largest minority. Asians and non-Māori Polynesians are also significant minorities, especially in the urban areas.
During its long isolation New Zealand developed a distinctive fauna dominated by birds, a number of which became extinct after the arrival of humans and the mammals they introduced.
Political power is held by the democratically elected Parliament of New Zealand under the leadership of the Prime Minister, who is the head of government.
New Zealand's open economy is known for being one of the world's most free market capitalist economies.
New Zealand is one of the most recently settled major landmasses.
The first settlers of New Zealand were Eastern Polynesians who came to New Zealand, probably in a series of migrations, sometime between around 700 and 2000 years ago.
Over the following centuries these settlers developed into a distinct culture now known as Māori.
The population was divided into Iwi (tribes) and hapū (subtribes) which would co-operate, compete and sometimes fight with each other.
New Zealand has strong international teams in several sports including rugby union, netball, cricket, rugby league, and softball.
New Zealand also does traditionally well in the sports of rowing, yachting and cycling.
The country is internationally recognised for performing well at the Olympic Games and Commonwealth Games.
Rugby union, commonly referred to as rugby, is closely linked to the country's national identity.
The national rugby team, the All Blacks, has the best win to loss record of any national team, and is well known for the haka (a traditional Maori challenge) performed before the start of international matches.
New Zealand is also well known for its extreme sports and adventure tourism. Its reputation in extreme sports extends from the world's first commercial bungy jumping site at Queenstown in the South Island in November 1988.
Mountaineering is also popular, with the country's most famous climber being the late Sir Edmund Hillary, the first person to reach the summit of Mount Everest.
At some point a group of Māori migrated to the Chatham Islands where they developed their own distinct Moriori culture.[
The first Europeans known to have reached New Zealand were Dutch explorer Abel Janszoon Tasman and his crew in 1642.
Māori killed several of the crew and no Europeans returned to New Zealand until British explorer James Cook's voyage of 1768–71. Cook reached New Zealand in 1769 and mapped almost the entire coastline.
Following Cook, New Zealand was visited by numerous European and North American whaling, sealing and trading ships. They traded European food and goods, especially metal tools and weapons, for Māori timber, food, artefacts and water. On occasion, Europeans traded goods for sex.
The potato and the musket transformed Māori agriculture and warfare, although the resulting Musket Wars died out once the tribal imbalance of arms had been rectified.
From the early nineteenth century, Christian missionaries began to settle New Zealand, eventually converting most of the Māori population, who had become disillusioned with their indigenous faith by the introduction of Western culture.
Becoming aware of the lawless nature of European settlement and increasing interest in the territory by the French, the British government sent William Hobson to New Zealand to claim sovereignty and negotiate a treaty with Māori.
The Treaty of Waitangi was first signed in the Bay of Islands on 6 February 1840. The drafting was done hastily and confusion and disagreement continues to surround the translation.
The Treaty is regarded as New Zealand's foundation as a nation and is revered by Māori as a guarantee of their rights. Hobson initially selected Okiato as the capital in 1840, before moving the seat of government to Auckland in 1841. Under British rule New Zealand had been part of the colony of New South Wales.
In 1840 New Zealand became its own dominion, which signalled increasing numbers of European settlers particularly from the British Isles. At first, Māori were eager to trade with the 'Pakeha', as they called them, and many iwi (tribes) became wealthy.
As settler numbers increased, conflicts over land led to the New Zealand Land Wars of the 1860s and 1870s, resulting in the loss of much Māori land.
SPORT IN NEW ZEALAND
Sport has a major role in New Zealand's culture, with the unofficial national sport of rugby union being particularly influential.
Other popular participatory sports include
cricket
bowls
netball
soccer
motorsport
golf
swimming
tennis.
It is unknown whether Māori had a name for New Zealand as a whole before the arrival of Europeans, although they referred to the North Island as Te Ika a Māui (the fish of Māui) and the South Island as Te Wai Pounamu (the waters of greenstone) or Te Waka o Aoraki (the canoe of Aoraki).
Until the early 20th century, the North Island was also referred to as Aotearoa (colloquially translated "land of the long white cloud")
The first European name for New Zealand was Staten Landt, the name given to it by the Dutch explorer Abel Tasman, who in 1642 became the first European to see the islands. Tasman assumed it was part of a southern continent connected with land discovered in 1615 off the southern tip of South America by Jacob Le Maire.
The name New Zealand originated with Dutch cartographers, who called the islands Nova Zeelandia, after the Dutch province of Zeeland. No one is certain exactly who first coined the term, but it first appeared in 1645 and may have been the choice of cartographer Johan Blaeu.
British explorer James Cook subsequently anglicised the name to New Zealand.
There is no connection to the Danish island Zealand.
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