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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 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 600 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, Five Eyes, 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.

Semi-final at the 1971 European Rowing Championships; New Zealand is ahead of the Soviet Union and Czechoslovakia

The 1972 New Zealand eight was a team of Olympic gold medallists in rowing from New Zealand, having previously won the 1971 European Rowing Championships. At the time, the eight was regarded as the blue ribbon class of rowing, and the sport still had amateur-status in New Zealand, unlike many other nations competing in rowing. After a disappointing Olympic performance at the 1968 Summer Olympics by the New Zealand eight, national selectors Rusty Robertson, Don Rowlands, and Fred Strachan were tasked with assembling a new crew. Robertson was also the team's coach. The next time a New Zealand eight competed was at the 1970 World Rowing Championships, where they came third. The team was once again significantly changed for the next rowing season, with the 1971 edition of the European Rowing Championships and other international regattas beforehand seen as the ultimate test for the 1972 Summer Olympics. The team put up an impressive performance, beat the highly favoured East German eight, and became European champion; at the time the win was regarded as holding world championship status. No further changes were made to the team, not even their seating position, for the 1972 season. Despite a shoe-string budget, financial constraints, and all rowers working part-time, the 1971 success was repeated and the team won Olympic gold in Munich. The president of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), Avery Brundage, was a zealous advocate of amateurism; he was so impressed by the New Zealand performance that he insisted on handing out the gold medals himself. During the medal ceremony, much to almost everybody's surprise, "God Defend New Zealand" was played instead of the national anthem, "God Save the Queen". It was the impetus for a campaign to make "God Defend New Zealand" the New Zealand anthem, and in 1977 it was gazetted as having equal status to the traditional anthem.

The team won some significant awards and recognition for its successes. The rules of the "Sportsman of the Year Award" had to be changed so that a team could win the supreme award; this was awarded after their European championship win. Brundage also awarded the Taher Pacha Trophy to the team for distinction in amateur sport in 1971. After the Olympic success, the team was again awarded "Sportsman of the Year"; the first time a back-to-back award had been handed out. Rowlands, their manager, was appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in the 1973 New Year Honours. Over time, coach Robertson, manager Rowlands, and then the team as a whole were inducted into the New Zealand Sports Hall of Fame. (Full article...)

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The following are images from various New Zealand-related articles on Wikipedia.

More Did you know? - show different entries

... that multinational GlaxoSmithKline was founded in Bunnythorpe, New Zealand in 1904, under the slogan "Glaxo builds bonny babies"?

Two chocolate fish
Two chocolate fish

... that the chocolate fish is a "species" indigenous to New Zealand?

... that the Six o'clock swill was not abolished in New Zealand until 1967?

...that the Coenocorypha snipes once ranged from New Caledonia and Fiji to New Zealand but are now restricted to New Zealand's outlying islands?

... that Ira Goldstein, an advertisement campaign character for the ASB Bank in New Zealand, supposedly drives a metallic-brown 1979 Princess 2000 HL?

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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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Mt. Sugarloaf
Mt. Sugarloaf
Mt. Sugarloaf by Lake Heron, South Island, New Zealand

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