New Zealand - interesting facts

If you are always attracted and interested in New Zealand , interesting facts about this country will please with its diversity - the article contains the most incredible and funny stories from the life of the island state.

Aborigines and settlers: from the first tribes to the present

Perhaps the most interesting facts about New Zealand concern the peculiarities of settling this territory and its modern life.

According to the researchers, the islands of the present state were later populated by people - Maori aborigines stepped on the coast only approximately in the interval between 1200 and 1300 years of our era.

Interestingly, for the whole world, New Zealand was discovered as far back as 1642 by the Dutchman Abel Tasman, but for more than 100 years the foot of the Europeans did not become the first to "conquer" the islands; they were members of the James Cook team, a seafarer from the United Kingdom. This happened in 1769, after which the land officially became the property of the British Crown.

Now the "rule" in the country is the Queen of Great Britain Elizabeth II, but the laws are considered and adopted at parliamentary sessions. The Queen will ratify them.

By the way, all this "miraculously" reflected on the state symbols of the country. In particular, New Zealand is among the three countries that have two anthems: "God save the Queen" and "God protect New Zealand". Canada and Denmark also boast two hymns.

Authorities, welfare and the "female" issue

The following facts about New Zealand will concern women and authorities. Thus, it was in this country, in 1893, that for the first time in the world people were equalized in the voting rights of men and women, and in our time the state was the first on the planet where the three highest posts were taken by representatives of the beautiful half of humanity.

Continuing the theme of the authorities, we note that officially the country is recognized as the least corrupt on Earth. The first place in this indicator, she shares with Denmark.

The origin of modern New Zealanders was interesting:

It is interesting that today the average age of the population is about 36 years, which makes the state quite young, because the average life expectancy of women reaches 81 years, and men - 76 years.

Economy

The islands pay special attention to agriculture and livestock. Especially - sheep breeding. So, it was calculated that for every New Zealander there are 9 sheep! Thanks to this, New Zealand occupies the second place in the world for the production of wool. And there are a lot of cars - with 4.5 million people, there are about 2.5 million private cars. Only about 2-3% use public transport. Including rail. By the way, permission to drive a car is issued when you reach 15 years of age.

Natural features

This section contains the most unusual and interesting about New Zealand, concerning natural attractions. After all, in this country to preserve the pristine beauty of nature and ecological purity are treated with special attention.

This is confirmed by the simple fact that in fact one third of the country is national parks , reserves and nature protection zones. In addition, there are categorically opposed to the use of nuclear energy - at the moment there are no nuclear power plants on the islands. Electricity and geothermal methods are used to generate electricity, that is, by attracting the energy of warm underground sources.

It is noteworthy that New Zealanders jokingly call themselves "kiwi", but not in honor of the known fruit, but in honor of the same-named bird, which is one of the symbols of the islands. By the way, these birds can not fly. But the same fruit is called simply: "kiwi fruit".

Note that none of the parts of even the largest islands that make up the country are not more than 130 kilometers from the ocean.

Did you know that the largest volcanic eruption in the last 70 thousand years was in New Zealand? True, it happened about 27 thousand years ago and now instead of the crater there was formed a lake, called Taupo . The cleanest lake on the planet is also here - this is the Blue Lake.

The proximity of the South Pole led to the fact that it is here that most of the varieties of penguins live. At the same time - there are no snakes in the islands at all.

But next to them there are the smallest species of dolphins - these are the dolphins of Hector. They do not live anywhere else in the world. By the way, New Zealand is the only place where a huge snail Powelliphanta lives. She is carnivorous.

Architectural features

The capital of the country is Wellington - the second largest city in New Zealand, but its main feature is that it is the most southern capital of the world. Wellington is a modern, developed and comfortable city, which has everything for a comfortable life.

The first largest is Oakland - it is invariably included in the list of the safest and most comfortable cities for the whole planet.

In the city of Dunedin - the most Scottish, because it was founded by the Celts - there is a street Baldwin . Extending 360 meters, it is officially recognized as the coolest on the planet, because its angle of inclination reaches 38 degrees!

Tourism Center

Given all of the above, do not be surprised that New Zealand - attractive for tourists. Thus, about 10% of the economy of this state is income from tourism.

Naturally, first of all fans of "green" rest go here, but after filming the trilogy "The Lord of the Rings" and the movie "Hobbit", which were conducted here, admirers of fairy tales of J. Tolkien who masterfully filmed Peter Jackson are sent to the islands. By the way, these surveys brought $ 200 million to the country's budget. There was even created a separate post in the Cabinet of Ministers, in order to control everything that relates to the films, so that the state would get the maximum profit from them.

Summarizing

Now you know what you will enjoy in New Zealand, the most interesting we have collected in this article. But believe me, there are a lot of other sights that you need to see with your own eyes.