- New Zealand is home to the longest place name in the world. It is called Taumatawhakatangihangakoauauotamateapokaiwhenuakitanatahu, a hill in Hawkes Bay.
- No where in the country is more than 79 miles (128km) away from the sea.
- The capital of New Zealand is Wellington – which is also the southernmost capital in the world
- A New Zealand lake has the clearest water in the world. The lake, Blue Lake is located in the Nelson Lakes National Park
- Its also home to the smallest dolphin species – Maui’s dolphin or popoto is also the worlds rarest dolphin and can be found off the west coast of the North island.
- Its also home to more species of Penguins than any other country
- The island has zero snakes, either native or introduced
- About a third of the country is protected national Park
- The country is roughly the same size as the UK but only has a population of about 4.4 million (in the UK in comparison as 64 million people).
- There are more vending machine sin Japan than people in New Zealand
- Auckland a major city on the North Island has more people living in it, than the whole of the southern Island
- Only 5% of the population is human – the rest are animals
- Ninety mile Beach should actually be called 90 Kilometre beach or 56 miles beach as that’s the true length.
- Its also home to the worlds steepest street. It has a gradient of 1. 2.86 at its steepest section (38% grade) – the street is called Baldwin Street and is in Dunedin
- The first person to climb Mt. Everest was Sir Edmund Hillary a kiwi
- New Zealand was the first country in the world to give women the right to vote – 1893.
- Unlike its neighbour Australia , New Zealand doesn’t actually have any dangerous or poisonous animals (with the one tiny exception of the Katipo Spider)
- If you are going I hope you like Golf, it has over 400 golf courses – that’s ones for every 9,000 people. That’s the highest number of golf courses per capita in the world.
- New Zealand was the last major landmass to be populated – excluding the polar regions.
- A native bird of New Zealand – the Kea is known for pulling of windscreen wipers off cars and eating the strips of rubber from windows.
- The country has three official languages: English, Māori and New Zealand Sign Language.
- Gisborne Airport, located on the East cost of the North Island has a train track running through the middle of the runway. Its not unusual for train and planes to stop to let the other one move out of the way.
- More people die each year from playing lawn bowls than from scuba diving – we all know how rough and dangerous lawn bowls are