New Zealand Geography

Located in Oceania, New Zealand is a group of islands in the South Pacific Ocean, that are located southeast of Australia. To be precise it is located 41 00 S, 174 00 E. New Zealand consists of two large islands, the North Island and the South Island. Te country also contains numerous smaller islands. The total land area is 270,535 sq Km / 104,453 sq miles, about the size of Italy, the United Kingdom or the US state of Colorado. The coastline extends about 15,134km. The North Island is volcanically active with a central plateau. South Island has the high snow covered mountain peaks and glaciers of the Southern Alps, a range running almost 500Km / 300miles along the Island. The longest river is the Waikato on North Island (425 Km / 264 miles), the largest inland stretch of water is Lake Taupo also on North Island (607 sq Km / 235 sq miles) and the highest point is Mount Cook on South Island (3754 m / 12316 ft). Over 75% of New Zealand is above 200m. The land use is broken down to approximately: forested 30% - meadows and pastures 50% - agricultural and under permanent cultivation 15% . Sheep and cattle graze on the rich farmland around Hamilton and New Plymouth in North Island and around Dunedin and Invercargill on South Island. New Zealand tends to suffer from many earthquake tremors. However, the earthquakes aren't considered very threatening. Apart from earthquakes some of the current environmental issues include: deforestation, soil erosion, and the decrease in biodiversity, as native species numbers have been greatly reduced due to introduced species.