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North Island
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Cook Strait North Island, New Zealand Bay of Plenty North Island: Coromandel Peninsula Devonport on Hauraki Gulf/TÄ«kapa Moana Napier Terraced walls of an opencast gold and silver mine in Waihi, North Island, New Zealand, with green hills and scattered buildings in the background. Taranaki The Tokaanu hydroelectric power station sits at the base of a forested hillside, with large penstocks descending to a rectangular white building by the water at Lake Taupo, New Zealand. Map of New Zealand showing major physical features, including the North Island and South Island, surrounding smaller islands, mountain ranges such as the Southern Alps, peaks like Mount Cook and Mount Ruapehu, major lakes, bays, and peninsulas. An inset locator map in the top left shows New Zealand's position relative to Australia and the Pacific region.
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Island, New Caledonia.
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Maori:
Te Ika-a-Maui
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Cook Strait
Cook Strait Rocky coast of Sinclair Head, on the southern tip of North Island, New Zealand, on the Cook Strait; South Island is visible in the background.

North Island

island, New Zealand
Also known as: Te Ika-a-Maui
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North Island, island, the smaller of the two principal islands of New Zealand in the South Pacific Ocean. It is separated from South Island by Cook Strait.

North Island, New Zealand
North Island, New Zealand

The islandā€™s terrain rises to a central mountain range (a continuation of the South Island range), which parallels the east coast. The range reaches its highest point at the volcanic Mount Ruapehu (9,176 feet [2,797 metres]) within Tongariro National Park (designated a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1990). Rainfall, heaviest in the winter months, tends to be more evenly distributed than it is on South Island. North Island has the great majority of the national population and is gaining an increasingly larger proportion, concentrated in the vicinity of the major urban areas, Wellington (the national capital) and Auckland. Area 44,872 square miles (116,219 square km). Pop. (2006) 3,059,418; (2012 est.) 3,394,000.

The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica This article was most recently revised and updated by Lorraine Murray.
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