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Climate. Population. Population Characteristics. Principal Cities. History. Moriori and Maori. MORE NEW ZEALAND PHOTOS.	Click on photo for a full size screen shot (53k)

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New Zealand lies within the Temperate Zone; the climate is generally mild, and seasonal differences are not great. The north end of the Auckland Peninsula has the warmest climate; the coldest climate occurs on the southwestern slopes of the Southern Alps. Rainfall is generally moderate to abundant and, except in a small area in the south central part of South Island, exceeds 508 mm (20in) annually.

According to the 1991 census, approximately 83 percent of New Zealanders are of European (mainly British) descent; they are also known as pakeha (Maori for “white man”). About 9 percent (some 321,000) are Maori, a Polynesian group, with some Melanesian admixture, whose ancestors migrated to New Zealand about the 14th century. About 2 percent of the population is of Polynesian descent, and various other Asian ethnicities make up the rest of the population.

The population of New Zealand at the 1991 census was 3,434,950. It was estimated at 3,368,774 in 1993, giving the country an overall population density of about 12.5 people per sq km (about 32 per sq mi). Nearly three-quarters of the population resided in the North Island, however. About 85 percent of the people lived in urban areas, and about half of these in the four largest cities and their environs. The provisional results of the 1996 census shows our population now to be 3,660,364.

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The capital of New Zealand and the center of interisland and coastal shipping is Wellington (population, 1991, greater city, 325,682). Other urban centers, with their 1991 (greater city) populations, are Auckland (855,571), a seaport and dairy distribution center; Christchurch (307,179), the wheat and grain center; Hamilton (148,625), a center for dairy farming; and Dunedin (109,503), a wool and gold center.

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The Dutch navigator Abel Janszoon Tasman was the first European to reach New Zealand in 1642. The British explorer Captain James Cook visited the islands in 1769 and took possession of them for Great Britain, but nearly 75 years elapsed before the British government recognized his claim.

The inhabitants of New Zealand at the time of Tasman's visit were the Maori, who began settling the land in the early 9th century. They had come to North Island from other Pacific islands, the last wave from Tahiti about AD 1350, in a fleet of large canoes. According to Maori oral history, when Kupe, a Maori navigator, voyaged here by canoe in the middle of the 10th century, the islands were uninhabited. Prior to Maori immigration, a dark-skinned race, the Moriori, of whose origin nothing is known, settled on the eastern coast of North Island; it is believed that they came to hunt the moa, a wingless bird about 3.7 m (about 12 ft) tall, which is now extinct. Some of these people were absorbed into the Maori population; the remainder were driven out and allowed to settle in the Chatham Islands, where the last survivor is said to have died in the mid-20th century. The Maori spread out along the coast and the rivers on both the main islands, although they were more numerous on North Island. In the late 18th and early 19th century British missionaries and whalers, despite fierce opposition from the Maori, established settlements and trading posts in New Zealand, chiefly among the Bay of Islands on the North Island. Systematic immigration began in 1839 and 1840 under the auspices of the New Zealand Company, which had been organized in London.

This page was last updated on 29 Aug 2008.

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