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介绍新西兰的地理和历史的文章

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介绍新西兰的地理和历史的文章
New Zealand is an island that lies off the eastern coast of Australia. It is made up of two large islands :North Island and South Island. New Zealand is surrounded by the Pacific Ocean to the north and east, and the Tasman Sea to the south and west .It is about the same size as the Philippines .Wellington ,the capital city ,lies on the North Island.
The Maori were the earliest people to come to New Zealand .When they discovered it about 1,000 years ago, they called it Aotearoa , which means "Land of the long white cloud ".The Maori came from the islands of Polynesia in the Pacific. It is some 3,500 kilometers from Polynesia to New Zealand, which they crossed in narrow boats ,They brought dogs ,rats and plants with them and settled mainly on the North Island where the weather was warmer. Around 1421,Chinese sailors possibly discovered the islands on one of their voyages around the world. The Dutchman Abel Tasman named the islands New Zealand in 1642.More than 120 years later, Capital James Cook took possession of the islands in 1769 and from that time British people started to settle in New Zealand. Bu 1840 about 2,000 Europeans , mainly British ,had come to settle in New Zealand and the Maori signed an agreement with these settlers. That day is still celebrated as a national holiday .It is every year on the sixth of February .Today their are still many people in New Zealand who call England "the home country", although it is a place where most of them have never been.