New Zealand By Joshua Doolan 7 White

Information: New Zealand is situated the same distance eastwards from Australia as London, Two Islands make up New Zealand. There is also a couple of other islands dotted around main land. The largest city in New Zealand is Auckland, which has a population of approximately 900,000 people, The capital of New Zealand is Wellington.

Population: The population of New Zealand is estimated to be4,468,200 ( June 2013)this includes, Europeans, Maori, Latin and American.

History: It is known that the early settlers in New Zealand (known as the Maori) arrived in waves of migration around a thousand years ago from the Melanesian Islands. In 1642, after leaving the Island Abel Janszoon of Mauritius set off to find what lay in the Southern Oceans, Abel Was in command of 2 ships, the "Heemskerck" and the "Zeehaen", he decided to sail towards mountains that had slowly appeared from the eastern horizon - and he became the first known European to stumble across New Zealand.

Wild-Life: There are No native mammals in New Zealand apart from bats and marine life, however they have many unique birds such as the Kiwi the Kakapo and the weka it is also home to several different species of penguins.

Climate: New Zealand's coldest month is July, and the warmest is in January the seasons are opposite to other country's in the Northern Hemisphere. The Average temperatures are around 15 Celsius in the upper North Island and around 10 Celsius near the bottom of the South Island. The climate is fairly mild, without the extremes experienced in many other countries. In fact, New Zealand doesn't tend to have temperatures over 35C or under -10C. It tends to snow only in the mountains in the North Island, and mainly in the Southern Alps in the South Island, although it has been known to snow on some of the cities on the East Coast of the South Island from time to time.