New Zealand a beautiful island country
New Zealand island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean . It consists of two main landmasses, the North Island & the South Island and more than 700 smaller islands , covering a total area of 268,021 square km. New Zealand is about 2,000 km east of Australia across the Tasman Sea and 1,000 km south of the islands of New Caledonia , Fiji , and Tonga . The country's varied topography and sharp mountain peaks, including the Southern Alps , owe much to tectonic uplift and volcanic eruptions. New Zealand's capital city is Wellington , and its most populous city is Auckland . Owing to their remoteness, the islands of New Zealand were the last large habitable lands to be settled by humans. Between about 1280 and 1350, Polynesians began to settle in the islands and then developed a distinctive Māori culture . In 1642, the Dutch explorer Abe...