Where Are The Regions of New Zealand?

Where is New Zealand, exactly? New Zealand is two islands in the Pacific, but it is not a Pacific Island.
 
 All those islands we normally think of as "Pacific": New Caledonia, Fiji, Tonga, the Cook Islands, and Tahiti, lie between 15 and 23 degrees South.
 
 They are north of the Tropic of Capricorn...
 
 ... New Zealand is south of it. By a long way.
 
 New Zealand stretches from 35 to 47 degrees south, and covers 270 000 square kilometres. It is:
 
 the size of Burkina Faso, Colorado, Equador, the UK, or the Western Sahara
 twice the size of Bangladesh, Fujian Province (China) or Greece
 four times the size of Sri Lanka
 half the size of Madagascar, France or Kenya
 and would fit comfortably into the Caspian or Baltic Seas...
 
 
 Some geography...
 
 For the sake of convenience, we can divide up the country into 2 degree bands of latitude. Down here, the numbers get bigger as we travel south. And it gets colder. Down here, birds fly NORTH for the winter...
 
 The regions of New Zealand fall into these bands as follows:
 
 34-36 Northland
 36-38 Auckland, The Coromandel
 38-40 Bay of Plenty, Waikato, Rotorua, Taupo, Eastland, Hawkes Bay, Wanganui-Manawatu, Taranaki
 40-42 Wellington, Wairarapa, Marlborough, Nelson
 42-44 The West Coast, Canterbury, Christchurch
 44-46 Mt Cook-MacKenzie, Wanaka, Queenstown, Otago, Dunedin, Fiordland
 46-48 Southland, including Stewart Island
 
 
 What else can you find at these latitudes?
 
 Following the same bands of latitude around the Southern Hemisphere, the regions of New Zealand share their parallels with:
 
 
 34-36 Buenos Aires, Adelaide and Canberra in Australia, and Cape Town in South Africa (in fact, Cape Town is NORTH of the northern-most point of New Zealand, and Sydney is the same.

..)
 36-38 Auckland and the Coromandel lie in the same band as Melbourne
 38-40 Bay of Plenty, Waikato, Hawkes Bay, Manawatu, Taranaki cover large slices of Argentina and Chile
 40-42 Wellington, Wairarapa, Marlborough, Nelson - more Chile.
 42-44 West Coast, Canterbury (Christchurch) are neighbours with Hobart
 44-46 Otago, Southland (Dunedin) is the same as... Patagonia! (just look at the landscapes to see why...)
 46-48 more Patagonia...
 
 
 The Northern Hemisphere
 
 While it's not an accurate comparison, New Zealand is in the middle of the ocean with no part of it further than 130 kilometres (about 80 miles) from the coast, in the same bands of latitude in the Northern Hemisphere you will find (moving north):
 
 
 34-36 Cyprus, Kabul, Tokyo, Los Angeles
 36-38 Seoul, Tunis, Athens, San Francisco
 38-40 Ankara, Beijing, Lisbon
 40-42 Istanbul, Tashkent, Madrid, Rome, New York
 42-44 Almaty, Vladivostok, Sofia, Toronto, Boston
 44-46 Bordeaux, Milan, Belgrade, Bucharest, Ottowa
 46-48 Geneva, Seattle
 
 
 Now you know where you're heading. All you need to do is get here...
 
 About the author:
 Stephen Hay invites you to explore the opportunities for luxury travel and accommodation in New Zealand.
 
 The site, http://www.luxury-new-zealand.com/, brings together all luxury offerings in New Zealand.
 
 © Stephen Hay All Rights Reserved. You may use this article in its entirety with this Resource Box and links.