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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...)

This is a Good article, an article that meets a core set of high editorial standards.

Illustration of a female

The great spotted kiwi, great grey kiwi or roroa (Apteryx maxima) is a species of kiwi endemic to the South Island of New Zealand. The great spotted kiwi, as a member of the ratites, is flightless. It is the largest of the kiwi. The rugged topography and harsh climate of the high altitude alpine part of its habitat render it inhospitable to a number of introduced mammalian predators, which include dogs, ferrets, cats, and stoats. Because of this, populations of this species have been less seriously affected by the predations of these invasive species compared to other kiwi. Nonetheless, there has been a 43% decline in population in the past 45 years, due to these predators and habitat destruction. This has led it to be classified as vulnerable. There are less than 16,000 great spotted kiwis in total, almost all in the more mountainous parts of northwest Nelson, the northwest coast, and the Southern Alps. A minority live on island reserves.

This kiwi is highly aggressive, and pairs will defend their large territories against other kiwi. Great spotted kiwi are nocturnal, and will sleep during the day in burrows. At night, they feed on invertebrates and will also eat plants. Great spotted kiwi breed between June and March. The egg is the largest of all birds in proportion to the size of the bird. Chicks take 75 to 85 days to hatch, and after hatching, they are abandoned by their parents. (Full article...)

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The shot tower of the Colonial Ammunition Company in Auckland City.
The shot tower of the Colonial Ammunition Company in Auckland City.

...that the shot tower of the Colonial Ammunition Company is the only surviving tower of its kind in New Zealand?

...that New Zealand cricketer and Test match captain Merv Wallace has been called "the most under-rated cricketer to have worn the silver fern"?

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Flight of the Conchords is a Grammy Award-winning folk, pop, and comedy band composed of Bret McKenzie and Jemaine Clement. Billing themselves as "Formerly New Zealand's fourth most popular guitar-based digi-bongo acapella-rap-funk-comedy folk duo" (having been bumped by a tribute band of themselves, Like of the Conchords), the group uses a combination of witty observation, characterization,acoustic guitars, and microphones to work the audience. The duo's comedy and music became first the basis of a BBC radio series and then an American television series, which premiered in 2007, also called Flight of the Conchords. Named Best Alternative Comedy Act at the 2005 US Comedy Arts Festival, Best Newcomer at the Melbourne Comedy Festival, and receiving a nomination for the Perrier Comedy Award at the Edinburgh Fringe in 2003, the duo's live performances have gained them a worldwide cult following. (Full article...)

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New Zealand spacewalk
New Zealand spacewalk

Backdropped by a colourful Earth, astronaut Robert L. Curbeam, Jr. (left) and European Space Agency (ESA) astronaut Christer Fuglesang, both STS-116 mission specialists, participate in the mission's first of three planned sessions of extravehicular activity as construction resumes on the International Space Station. The landmasses depicted are the South Island (left) and North Island (right) of New Zealand.

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