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Since 1876, local government has administered the various regions of New Zealand. Due to its colonial heritage, New Zealand local government was modelled fairly closely on British local government structures, with elected city, borough, and county councils. Over the years some of these councils merged or had boundary adjustments by mutual agreement, and a few new ones were created. In 1989, the government completely reorganised local government, implementing the current two-tier structure of regional councils and territorial authorities.

The South Island contained most of the white population until around 1900 when the North Island again took the lead and has supported an ever greater majority of the country's total population through the 20th century and into the 21st.

God's Own Country, or Godzone, is generally accepted, by New Zealanders if nowhere else, as the alternative name for New Zealand. God's Own Country was the title of a poem about New Zealand written by Thomas Bracken about 1890. (He also wrote God Defend New Zealand, which became the country's second national anthem). It was a favourite saying of Richard John Seddon, Premier of New Zealand for 13 years (1893-1906).

Kiwi (usually capitalised) has been applied to and adopted by New Zealanders as a nickname for themselves and as an adjective for their culture. It originates from kiwi (usually uncapitalised), the Maori word for several species of flightless birds endemic to New Zealand. The plural form for New Zealanders is always Kiwis. The plural forms for the birds are the anglicised kiwis or, following the Maori language, kiwi without an s.

Britain was motivated by the desire to forestall other European powers (France established a very small settlement on Banks Peninsula in the South Island at Akaroa also in 1840) and to end the lawlessness of European (predominantly British) whalers and traders. Maori chiefs were motivated by the promises of protection of their existing possessions (which was only partially carried out) and by the promise of protection against other Maori using muskets obtained from European whalers and traders (the Musket Wars of 1820-1835).

The total land area of New Zealand, 268,680 km², is somewhat less than that of Japan or of the British Isles, and slightly larger than Colorado in the USA. The country extends more than 1600 km along its main, north-northeast axis.

New Zealand is heavily dependent on trade—particularly in agricultural products—to drive growth, and it has been affected by global economic slowdowns and slumps in commodity prices. Since agricultural exports are highly sensitive to currency values and a large percentage of consumer goods are imported, any changes in the value of the New Zealand dollar has a strong impact on the economy.

New Zealand is a unitary state rather than a federation — regions are created by the authority of the central government, rather than the central government being created by the authority of the regions. Local government in New Zealand has only the powers conferred upon it by Parliament. These powers have traditionally been distinctly fewer than in some other countries. For example, police and education are run by central government, while the provision of low-cost housing is optional for local councils. Many of them used to control ports and gas and electricity supply, but nearly all of that was privatised in the late 20th century.

From the 1790s the waters around New Zealand were visited by British, French, and American whaling ships, whose crews sometimes came into conflict with Maori inhabitants. The arrival of traders and missionaries in the 1800s and 1810s added to local disputes. The first full-blooded European infant in the territory, Thomas King, was born in 1815 in the Bay of Islands. The initiation of a programme of large-scale settlement and land purchases in 1839 by the New Zealand Company, coupled with increasing French interest in the islands, finally prompted the British government to take control of the situation.