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New Zealand has a strong party system in place. The first political party was founded in 1891, and its main rival was founded in 1909 — from that point until a change of electoral system in 1996, New Zealand had a two-party system in place. Today, New Zealand has a genuinely multi-party system, with eight parties currently represented in Parliament. Neither of the two largest parties has been able to govern without support from other groups since 1996, meaning that coalition government is common.

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.

While New Zealand men often take pride in being 'strong, silent types', this attitude may have a downside in contributing to New Zealand having one of the highest suicide rates among young males in the industrialised world.

New Zealand was featured as the setting for "Middle Earth" in the renowned early 21st century trilogy of films based on Tolkien's Lord of the Rings books. It has brought an additional interest in tourism to the nation.

A number of New Zealand commentators have observed that there is no culture in New Zealand. This has led to protests from those who believe that there is a uniquely definable New Zealand culture. Perhaps one of the more memorable protests was the 1980 song "Culture" by The Knobz after outspoken Prime Minister Sir Robert Muldoon stated that New Zealand pop music was not part of the New Zealand cultural scene.

Today New Zealand has 12 regional councils for the administration of environmental and transport matters and 74 territorial authorities that administer roading, sewerage, building consents, and other local matters. The territorial authorities are 16 city councils, 57 district councils, and the Chatham Islands Council. Four of the territorial councils (one city and three districts) and the Chatham Islands Council also perform the functions of a regional council and thus are known as unitary authorities. Territorial authority districts are not subdivisions, as such, of regional council districts and a few of them straddle regional council boundaries.

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.

Since 1984 successive governments have engaged in major economic restructuring, transforming New Zealand from a highly protectionist and regulated economy to a liberalised, free-trade economy. Despite periods of dynamic growth in the mid 1980s and early '90s, average yearly economic growth has been poorer than expected and is highly reliant on massive levels of immigration to boost GDP. However, since 1999 New Zealand has enjoyed a period of relatively strong and sustained growth.

Although less obvious today, in the past team sports, particularly Rugby football, gambling on horse races, and sharing a beer after a hard day's work with some good friends or work mates have been significant images of New Zealand life. This predominantly working-class male cultural image has previously been so strong that it has overshadowed other, perhaps higher, cultural aspects of New Zealand society.

New Zealand has a unicameral Parliament, the 120-seat House of Representatives. Since 1996, New Zealand has used the mixed member proportional (MMP) system, under which each MP is either elected by voters in a single-member (First Past the Post electoral system) constituency or appointed from party lists. Several seats are currently reserved for members elected on a separate Maori roll. However, Maori may choose to vote in and to run for the non-reserved seats, and several have entered Parliament in this way. Parliaments have a maximum term of three years, although an elections can be called earlier.