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New Zealand's scenery has appeared in a number of television programmes and films. In particular, Hercules and Xena were filmed around Auckland, Heavenly Creatures in Christchurch. The Tribe is set and filmed here too. Peter Jackson shot the epic The Lord of the Rings trilogy in various locations around the country, taking advantage of the spectacular and relatively unspoiled landscapes, and Mount Taranaki was used as a stand-in for Mount Fuji in The Last Samurai. Other movies currently filming in New Zealand include King Kong and The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.

New Zealand is the most geographically isolated of all countries. Its closest neighbour Australia is 2,000 km to the northwest of the main islands across the Tasman Sea. The only landmass to the south is Antarctica, and to the north are New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga.

Political separation of the two islands was an issue in the 1860s. The more populous North Island was riven by war and political turmoil while the South Island was prospering, especially after gold was discovered (1861) at Gabriel's_Gully in Central Otago. The South Island grew very tired of financially supporting the North Island while receiving very little in return. The feeling was particularly bitter between Auckland and Otago where Dunedin journalist, Julius Vogel began a strong campaign to make the South Island completely independent. The matter was put to a vote in Parliament on September 19, 1865. Seventeen members voted for separation and 31 for unity, so New Zealand remained united. Vogel later became Prime Minister of a united New Zealand.

Because of its long isolation from the rest of the world, New Zealand has extraordinary flora and fauna. Until the arrival of the first humans just a millennium or two ago, 80% of the land was forested and, barring two species of bat, there were no non-marine mammals at all. Instead, New Zealand's forests were inhabited by a diverse range of birds (many of them flightless), reptiles, and insects—some of them almost the size of a mouse (see weta).

In October 1990, the National Party again formed the government, for the first of three, three-year terms. In 1996 New Zealand elected its first MMP Parliament. The system was designed to increase representation of smaller parties in Parliament and appears to have done so. Since 1996, neither the National nor the Labour Party has had an absolute majority in Parliament, and for all but one of those years, the government has been a minority one. The current Labour government followed its November 1999 election success by outpolling National 41 per cent to 21 per cent in the July 2002 general election. Labour formed a coalition, minority government with Jim Anderton's Progressive Coalition, a left-wing party (subsequently named "Progressive Party") which holds two seats in Parliament.

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.

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.

New Zealand has a modern, developed economy. Its primary export industries are agriculture, horticulture, fishing, forestry and information technology. There are also substantial tourism and export education industries. The film and wine industries are considered to be up-and-coming.

The usual climate throughout the country is mild, mostly cool temperate to warm temperate, with temperatures rarely falling below 0°C or rising above 30°C. Conditions vary from wet and cold in Southland and the West Coast of the South Island, where most of the country's rain falls, to subtropical in Northland. In Wellington the average minimum temperature in winter is 5.9°C and the average maximum temperature in summer is 20.3°C.

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 country is internationally recognised as achieving extremely well on a medals-to-population ratio at Olympic Games and Commonwealth Games.

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.