Geography

Picture taken from gpsdrive.de

Picture taken from freeworldmaps.net

Location

New Zealand  lies southeast of Australia in the South Pacific Ocean. In relation to Hawaii New Zealand is to the southwest.

Size

The total area of New Zealand is 267,710 square kilometers while the U.S. is 8,080,464 square kilometers making it 30 times bigger than New Zealand. The total area of New Zealand only takes up 3.31% of the land of the U.S. Most of New Zealand is contained in the two largest island Te Ika-a-Maui and Waipounamu. Te Ika-a-Maui lies to the north while Waipounamu lies in the south (Factbook).

Terrain

New Zealand consists of many mountains and large coastal plains. Waipounamu is divided by the Southern Alps which has about 18 peaks that are over 300 meters high. Due to much glaciation on the southern side of the island there are inlets otherwise known as Fiords, that have steep cliffs that go deep into the sea.

The northern island Te Ika-a-Maui  though less mountainous, is marked by volcanic activity. The Taupo volcanic zone is an area of high volcanic active that has a v shape. Currently this zone is actually expanding by a rate of 8mm every year! (wiki)

This volcanic zone gets its name from the lake, Lake Taupo that sits near the center of the island. Lake Taupo is New Zealand's largest lake by surface area and sits in a caldera that was created by the eruption of a super volcanoe long ago. That volcano is now said to be dormant but not extinct as there is still activity (Taupo Volcano). The reason that New Zeland has an interesting topography is from its boundary lying between the pacific and indo-australian plantes. An interesting fact is that New Zealand is part of the microconitinent Zealandia which was half the size of Australia that gradually sank into the sea (Zealandia).