You probably saw I wrote many articles regarding New Zealand. I praise a lot about its beauty. How much do you know about this country? Let’s find out some interesting facts there!
Facts about New Zealand
First of everything!
- NZ settled about 750years ago, made it the last major land mass settled by humans in the World.
- The first country to see sunrise, made it to “the destination to welcome the New Mellinium” in year 2000
- The country that’s closest to the sun, makes it so dangerous to humans skin with the strongest UV.
- The first country allowed women to vote in 1893
- The first nation to climb Mount Everest: Tenzing Norgay (Nepali) and Edmund Hillary (New Zealander) made the first official ascent of Everest in 1953.
- It is one of the safest country to live in, especially for women and is probably the best country to raise children I must say! If you want to know the 10 most happiest country in the world (every year, they come up with the list), well beside the Scandinavian country, New Zealand is always there in the list.
- The country that has a team plays The World’s best Rugby. AllBlacks won the Rugby world cup in 2015.
- Sir Edmund Hillary was imprinted on 5NZDollar banknote and won the world’s most beautiful banknote in 2015.
Film/movie destinations
- Film Director for Lord of the Rings and the Hobbiton Trilogy is a New Zealander, Sir Peter Jackson. He is also the reason for the famous tourist destinations: Hobbiton Movie Sets in New Zealand today.
- Kiwi: used to refer to 3 things: New Zealanders, a Kiwi fruit and a bird named Kiwi. Kiwi fruit is known widely to be from NZ.
Food
- New Zealand’s best-known mussel is the endemic green-lipped mussel ( Perna canaliculus ) and it is very important to NZ’s economy. If you are in New Zealand, please don’t forget to try the mussel.
- NZ also has fresh sea fish for Fish and Chips, try it while you are there.
- NZ also has great pie, try them as well while you are there.
Earthquakes
- Everyone knows that Japan is a country of earthquakes, but did you know that New Zealand is not less? Wellington city located on the Ring of Fire thus, it is high risk to earthquakes, followed by Napier then Hastings. Many buildings in Wellington were equipped with base isolators to protect the building from earthquake movement exotic, included the Te Papa museum and the parliament buildings. Every year GNS Science locates over 15,000 earthquakes in New Zealand. About 100 – 150 of these quakes are large enough to be felt. It records only magnitude 6.0 up**.**
- Some website to check earthquake or natural disaster, especially when you are in the country: Geonet
Cities
New Zealand has 350 prominent cities, in which
- Auckland (most populated and largest city) - North island
- Wellington, The capital city of NZ, and it won the “coolest little capital in the world” in 2014. It has only 442sq kilometers - North island
- Christchurch (oldest city in NZ), and largest city in South Island.
- Queenstown (the most beautiful town) - South island [highly recommended for Winter]
- Ophir town (in between Dunedin and Queenstown) has the record as the coldest town in NZ with -21.6C in 1995 July 3rd.
Travels & airports
- With this size of the country, NZ has 180 airports around the country, which 5 are international airports: (N) Auckland, Wellington, Hamilton & (S) Christchurch and Queenstown. According to sizes, Large airports: 3 (Auckland, Wellington & Christchurch), Medium airports: 35, Small airports: 89, Heliports: 53.
- Most cases, travels in NZ by airs are cheaper than buses, cruises and trains.
Profiles
- New Zealand (known as Aotearoa in the Māori language = The land of Long white cloud)
- NZ consists of two main landmasses—the North Island and the South Island - and over 700 smaller islands, covering a total area of 268,021 square kilometers.
- NZ is commonwealth country same as Australia and Canada, thus it has the same public holiday such as Queen birthday and so on. The head of state is Queen Elizabeth II. The Prime Minister is Jacinda Ardern
- NZ has a bit over than 5 millions population, which is actually lower than the number of sheep raising in this country, about 26.20 million (2020).
- Priority of rights: 1) Women, 2) Pets, 3) Men
- New Zealand is located in Southern Hemisphere, so Summer in NZ is Dec - Feb, and Winter is Jun - Aug
- The country has 3 official languages: English, Maori and New Zealand Sign language
- Most shops in Wellington closed at 5.30pm, Bars and clubs opens from 9pm and the cinema close after midnight (2am) or until the morning
