Where Are the Regions of New Zealand?

Where is New Zealand, exactly? New Zealand is two islands in the Pacific, but it is not a Pacific Island.All those islands we normally think of as “Pacific”: New Caledonia, Fiji, Tonga, the Cook Islands, and Tahiti, lie between 15 and 23 degrees South.They are north of the Tropic of Capricorn…… New Zealand is south of it. By a long way.New Zealand stretches from 35 to 47 degrees south, and covers 270 000 square kilometres. It is:the size of Burkina Faso, Colorado, Equador, the UK, or the Western Saharatwice the size of Bangladesh, Fujian Province (China) or Greecefour times the size of Sri Lankahalf the size of Madagascar, France or Kenyaand would fit comfortably into the Caspian or Baltic Seas…Some geography…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 of New Zealand fall into these bands as follows: 34-36 Northland36-38 Auckland, The Coromandel38-40 Bay of Plenty, Waikato, Rotorua, Taupo, Eastland, Hawkes Bay, Wanganui-Manawatu, Taranaki40-42 Wellington, Wairarapa, Marlborough, Nelson42-44 The West Coast, Canterbury, Christchurch44-46 Mt Cook-MacKenzie, Wanaka, Queenstown, Otago, Dunedin,…