New Zealand is a country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean, located on two large islands (North Island and South Island) and a large number (about 700) of adjacent smaller islands. The capital of the country is Wellington. The Kingdom of New Zealand includes the island states of the Cook Islands, Niue, independent in public administration, but freely associated with New Zealand, as well as the state of Tokelau and the Antarctic Ross Territory.

One of the main features of New Zealand is its geographic isolation. The closest neighbors of New Zealand are - to the west Australia, separated by the Tasman Sea (the shortest distance is about 1,700 km); to the north, the island territories - New Caledonia (about 1,400 km), Tonga (about 1,800 km) and Fiji (about 1,900 km).

Name, In indigenous language, Maori, New Zealand is referred to as Aotearoa, which can be translated as Country of the Long White Cloud.

Maui is a demigod in Maori legends, who caught a huge fish in the ocean, which then turned into an island. The South Island had two common names, Te Wai Paunamu and Te Waka-a-Maui. The first name can be translated as jade water, and the second as a boat belonging to Maoi, the already mentioned demigod of Maori legends. Until the beginning of the 20th century, the North Island was often called Aotearoa by the Maori, and later it was this name that became the generally accepted name in the Maori language for the whole country.

The first European navigator who visited the coast of this country, the Dutchman Abel Tasman, named it StatenLandt. This name was transformed by Dutch cartographers into the Latin NovaZeelandia, in honor of one of the provinces of the Netherlands - Zeeland (Dutch. Zeeland), and into the Dutch name NieuwZeeland. Later, the British navigator James Cook used the English version of this name, NewZealand, in his records, and it is this name that has become the now official name of the country.