The last land people reached
New Zealand lies about 2,000 kilometres east of Australia, on the boundary between the Pacific and Australian plates. Plate movement drives the rapid uplift that formed the Southern Alps, which run the length of the South Island and hold 18 peaks above 3,000 metres, while a volcanic plateau covers much of the central North Island.
Long isolation shaped the wildlife just as strongly. Bats are the only native land mammals of modern times, and without mammal predators birds such as the kiwi, kākāpō and takahē gave up flight. The government now aims to eradicate the most harmful introduced predators by 2050.
The first people came from Polynesia in waves between about 1250 and 1350, making these islands the last large habitable land to be settled. They developed a distinctive Māori culture, and Aotearoa is the Māori name for the country today. The giant moa, which stood about 3.6 metres tall with its neck outstretched, was overhunted and had vanished by about 1500. Abel Tasman arrived in 1642, Dutch mapmakers named the land after Zeeland, and James Cook followed in 1769.
One treaty in two languages
In 1835, 34 northern rangatira, or chiefs, signed a declaration under which iwi would keep control of their land and people while Britain protected them from other powers. Five years later, the first signatures went onto the Treaty of Waitangi, on 6 February 1840 in the Bay of Islands.
The treaty's two texts do not match, and much of the country's later history flows from that gap. In the English text, Māori cede sovereignty, an idea with no direct equivalent in their society, and are promised undisturbed possession of their lands, forests and fisheries. The Māori text instead grants kāwanatanga, the right of governance, and guarantees tino rangatiratanga, full chieftainship, over lands and possessions. By the end of 1840 more than 500 Māori had signed, at least 13 of them women, while only 39 rangatira signed a sheet bearing the English text. Some leaders refused, among them Pōtatau Te Wherowhero of Waikato. On 21 May, before consulting London, William Hobson, who had signed for Queen Victoria, proclaimed British sovereignty over the whole country.
War, confiscation and a long reckoning
Settlers were already a majority by 1859. Central North Island iwi, determined to stop land passing out of Māori hands, had created the Kīngitanga, a Māori monarchy, and crowned Te Wherowhero in 1858. Fighting in the north from 1845 had ended without confiscation, but war returned in 1860 over a disputed sale at Waitara. In July 1863 the government moved against the Waikato, partly to break the Kīngitanga's influence. By March 1864 it had about 14,000 men in the field against a Māori force of a few thousand. One tally of all the wars records about 2,150 Māori and 750 on the government side killed, civilians included.
The New Zealand Settlements Act of 1863 allowed land to be seized as punishment for rebellion. At least 1.2 million hectares were taken, with some accounts putting it nearer 1.5 million, from loyal and rebel tribes alike. At Parihaka in Taranaki, people resisted by peacefully ploughing the land. Hundreds were jailed without trial, and the army destroyed the settlement. The estimated Māori population fell from around 86,000 in 1769 to 42,000 in 1896.
Redress came slowly. In 1975 Whina Cooper led a march of about 1,100 kilometres to Parliament under the slogan "Not one more acre of Maori land". That same year the Waitangi Tribunal was created, and from 1985 it could hear claims reaching back to 1840. In 1995 Waikato-Tainui accepted a settlement worth NZ$170 million that included a formal Crown apology. An Act of 2017 made the Whanganui River a legal person, which the country's audit office believes was a first for legislation anywhere.
Farms, hydro lakes and a treaty still argued over
Refrigerated shipping from 1882 reshaped farming, and Britain became the great customer: it took 65 percent of exports in the 1950s, but only 26.8 percent by the end of 1973, the year it entered the European Economic Community. Governments from 1984 turned to free-market reforms and scrapped farm subsidies. Dairy, meat and wood remain the main goods exports. The OECD names a small domestic market and geographic remoteness among the reasons for persistently weak productivity. Around 85 percent of electricity is renewable, though that leaves prices exposed when dry years drain the hydro lakes.
In the 2023 census, 17.8 percent of people identified as Māori and 28.8 percent had been born overseas. Auckland holds about a third of the population. Women won the vote in 1893, earlier than in any other self-governing colony that later became independent. Everyone who meets the residency rules receives the same flat public pension from 65. Te reo Māori, long discouraged by government, became an official language in 1987 after a Tribunal claim, and rugby, the national sport, still opens internationals with a haka.
The treaty itself remains unsettled ground. In November 2024 tens of thousands joined a march on Parliament against a bill to restate its principles, and on 10 April 2025 members voted it down, 112 to 11. Nearly two centuries on, the words chosen at Waitangi are still being weighed.