If you’ve seen the Lord of the Rings, then you probably know that Middle Earth is located somewhere along the hills of New Zealand.
More than being home to Frodo Baggins and his hobbit friends, New Zealand is also one of Australia’s next-door neighbors in Oceania, the Southern region of the Pacific Ocean.
The country is made up of two main islands, the North Island and the South Island, and several smaller islands.
Famous for hosting a larger population of sheep than people, New Zealand is home to about four million residents.
To put that into perspective, New York City alone had a population of 8.4 million people.
New Zealand is also known as Aotearoa, which means “Land of the Long White Cloud” in Maori, one of the major languages in the country.
New Zealand: Facts, Figures, and Features
- Neighbors: Australia, Fiji, Tonga
- Size: 104,483 square miles
- Population: 4,537,081 (123rd)
- Density: 42.7 people per square mile
- Capital City: Wellington (city population 179,466)
- Head of State: Queen Elizabeth II
- Head of Government: Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern
- Currency: New Zealand dollar (NZD)
- Main Imports: machinery and equipment, vehicles and aircraft, petroleum, electronics, textiles, plastics
- Main Exports: Hobbits, Russell Crowe, Ores, and metals; wool, food and live animals; fuels, transport machinery, and equipment
- Import Partners: China 16.4%, Australia 15.2%, US 9,3%, Japan 6.5%, Singapore 4.8%, Germany 4.4%
- Export Partners: Australia 21.1%, China 15%, US 9%, Japan 7%
- Time Zone: GMT +12
- Website: https://www.govt.nz/
