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We
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New Zealand's spectacularly beautiful landscape includes vast mountain chains, steaming volcanoes, sweeping coastlines, deeply indented fiords and lush rainforests. It is also home to the Maori people, the indigenous people of Aotearoa (New Zealand) who first arrived here in waka hourua (voyaging canoes) from their ancestral homeland of Hawaiki over 1000 years ago.
New Zealand:
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The Polynesian Maori reached New Zealand in about A.D. 800. In 1840, their chieftains entered into a compact with Britain, the Treaty of Waitangi, in which they ceded sovereignty to Queen Victoria while retaining territorial rights. In that same year, the British began the first organized colonial settlement. A series of land wars between 1843 and 1872 ended with the defeat of the native peoples. The British colony of New Zealand became an independent dominion in 1907 and supported the UK militarily in both World Wars. New Zealand's full participation in a number of defense alliances lapsed by the 1980s. In recent years, the government has sought to address longstanding Maori grievances. --
CIA World Factbook |
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You can also use the links above or below to:
- Read the New Zealand Profile
- View the New Zealand Flag
- Use either the MS Virtual Earth GIS map of New Zealand
or the Google GIS map of the country
- See the New Zealand map used in the CIA World
Factbook
- Check out New Zealand Web Resources
- Shop for New Zealand Books or Music in our Amazon
Store
- Get the latest New Zealand news
- Get the latest New Zealand weather
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