New Zealand’s Geography

New Zealand is country clubbed together by a bunch of several small islands, with a greater area comprising the North and South Island, located in the southwest part of the Pacific Ocean. It spreads over 268,680 square kilometers of land area, which is even smaller than that of Italy and Japan. The smaller islands that constitute to form it are the Great Barrier Island, the Stewart Island, the Waiheke Islands and the Chatham Islands, to name a few significant ones. The country is rich in its marine resources and has earned the reputation of being the seventh largest in chart of the most Exclusive Economic Zones in the world. The continent Zealandia, which is the home to New Zealand, is not even visible as its 90% part is submerged in water.

The Main Geographical Regions
The major land area of New Zealand consists of the two great Islands called as the North and South Islands. The Island area is the source of such rich and diverse landscape, which offers itself as an absorbing shooting location to the television and film industry. A brief description of these beautiful islands is given below.

The South Island
The South Island, which is the larger among the two, is famously called as ‘Te Waka a Maui’ that can be comprehended as ‘Maui’s Canoe’. The Maori’s referred to it as Greenstone and Mainland, because in the context of the Maori Legend, the South Island emerged before its sister, the North Island and also due to the larger size of the former one. The island contains several mountains with 18 peaks as high as three thousand meters scattered over its area. It shares its area with the mountain range called the Southern Alps, which contains the highest peak namely of the Mount Cook, with a height of 3754 meters. The range stands as the natural divider of the length of the South Island.

The North Island
The North Island contains about 75% of the population of the entire country. It encompasses an area of 113,729 square kilometers and is dotted with several significant cities- Auckland being the largest one. This is due to the less number of mountain ranges that exist in this area, supporting a large number of inhabitants. But the place is frequented by volcanic eruptions and contains the active volcano, Mount Ruapehu.

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