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@opencage@en.osm.townLast week in #geoweirdness we covered Canada 
in the far north of the globe.
This week we head far south to New Zealand 
So what's geographically odd about New Zealand?
1/n
2/ First up, you might be surprised we were able to post a map of New Zealand Many world maps mistakenly drop the island nation.
This happens so frequently it's become a bit of a meme and there is a /r/MapsWithoutNZ on Reddit
3/ New Zealand the country is only one part of "The Realm of New Zealand" which also includes the Cook Islands 
, Niue 
, Tokelau 
and the territory claimed by NZ in Antarctica (the Ross Dependency).
4/ New Zealand is named after the Zeeland ("sea land") region of the Netherlands 
. In Māori, the country's second official language, it is called Aotearoa
5/ "Sea land" is a fitting name because New Zealand is made up of many islands. The vast majority of the population (a bit more than 5M people) live on the North and South Islands.
6/ Despite being on the North Island, New Zealand's capital, Wellington, is the southernmost capital in the world at 41° S latitude
7/ New Zealand is also involved in some aspects of government of the 
United Kingdom's sole remaining Pacific territory: the tiny, and remote Pitcairn Islands 
(ISO code "PN"), originally settled by the infamous Bounty mutineers.
8/ New Zealand itself was of course also a British colony and then later Dominion.
As we covered in our 
Australia #geoweirdness thread a few weeks ago, the Colony of New Zealand itself was once a part of New South Wales Colony, and was invited to join Australia as a state.
New Zealand declined.
https://nzhistory.govt.nz/page/nz-says-no-aussie-federation
9/ As a geocoding service we would be remiss not to mention that New Zealand has the longest placename in the world: Taumatawhakatangihangakōauauotamateapōkaiwhenuakitānatahu
10/ another geocoding oddity of New Zealand is the admin hierarchy.
There are regions and districts (and city councils) and some districts fall within more than one region because regions are based on water catchment areas, whereas districts are based on communities and roads. 
11/ We close our #geoweirdness thread with a delightful, albeit rarely used, New Zealand centric world map
12/ We hope you enjoyed our look at the geographic strangeness of New Zealand . Thanks for reading (and sharing).
We have many more threads about specific countries, border disputes, geocoding, etc listed on our blog. Many still on twitter, but over time we are moving them here to mastodon. Enjoy.
https://blog.opencagedata.com/geothreads
We'll feature more countries in coming weeks and months
Bonus toot, if you like New Zealand geographic oddities you are going to love (or possibly hate) our Australian #geoweirdness thread from a few weeks ago