Geographic Facts About New Zealand

... where in the world are we?

Geographic facts about New Zealand stretches from 35 to 47 degrees south, that's about 1600 km, and covers 270 000 square kilometres. It has 18 000 km of coastline. But no map of New Zealand will show you that New Zealand is:

the size of Burkina Faso, Colorado, Equador, the UK, or the Western Sahara
twice the size of Bangladesh, Fujian Province (China) or Greece
four times the size of Sri Lanka
half the size of Madagascar, France or Kenya
and would fit comfortably into the Caspian or Baltic Seas...

so it's a good thing that you asked...

Now, for those interested in such things... Geographic facts about New Zealand!

For the sake of convenience, we can divide up the country into 2-degree bands of latitude. Down here, the numbers get bigger as we travel south. And it gets colder. Down here, birds fly NORTH for the winter...

The regions as shown on this detailed map of New Zealand fall into these bands as follows:

34-36: Northland
36-38: Auckland; The Coromandel
38-40: Bay of Plenty; Waikato; Rotorua; Taupo and Ruapehu; Eastland/Gisborne; Hawkes Bay; Wanganui-Manawatu; Taranaki
40-42: Wellington; Wairarapa; Marlborough; Nelson
42-44: The West Coast; Canterbury; Christchurch
44-46: Mt Cook-MacKenzie; Wanaka; Queenstown; Otago; Dunedin; Fiordland
46-48: Southland, including Stewart Island

What else can you find at these latitudes?

Following the same bands of latitude around...

The Southern Hemisphere

... the regions shown above on this page of geographic facts about New Zealand share their parallels with:

34-36 Buenos Aires, Adelaide and Canberra in Australia, and Cape Town in South Africa (in fact, Cape Town is NORTH of the northern-most point of New Zealand, and Sydney is the same...)
36-38 Auckland and the Coromandel lie in the same band as Melbourne
38-40 Bay of Plenty, Waikato, Hawkes Bay, Manawatu, Taranaki cover large slices of Argentina and Chile
40-42 Wellington, Wairarapa, Marlborough, Nelson - more Chile.
42-44 West Coast, Canterbury (Christchurch) are neighbours with Hobart
44-46 Otago, Southland (Dunedin) is the same as... Patagonia! (just look at the landscapes to see why...)
46-48 more Patagonia...

The Northern Hemisphere

It's not an accurate comparison, as any detailed map of New Zealand will show, we are in the middle of the ocean with no part further than 130 kilometres (about 80 miles) from the coast. But in the same bands of latitude as the regions of New Zealand in the South, in the Northern Hemisphere you will find (moving north):