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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.

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.

In recent years the government has sought to address long-standing Maori grievances. Parliament established a Waitangi Tribunal in 1975 to hear claims of official violations of the Treaty of Waitangi, and in 1985 the Tribunal gained the right to consider Crown actions dating back to 1840. A programme of widespread economic de-regulation and privatisation of public enterprises undertaken by the Labour government of 1984 - 1990 continued under its National Party successors. In 1986 the Constitution Act came into force, and in 1993 the majority of New Zealanders decided to change the electoral system from the British system of single member constituencies elected by 'first past the post', to a form of proportional representation called Mixed Member Proportional (MMP).

Maori population figures plummetted after 1820 due to tribal wars (the musket wars) and to unfamiliar diseases - measles, whooping cough, influenza and later typhoid - reducing an initial Maori population of perhaps 100,000 to 120,000 (lower than many contemporary figures, which probably overestimated densities in the South Island) to only 62,000 by 1857 and 44,000 in 1891. Recovery began slowly (though three decades earlier than among Australia's still worse-affected Aborigines), with numbers reviving steadily after the setback of the 1918 influenza pandemic. By 1900 also, Maori had lost most of their land, usually as a result of sales or of confiscations after armed conflict with the settler government.

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.