New Zealand Geography and Nature

Geography And Nature

163 practice questions, each with the answer and an explanation.

All 163 questions

  1. Complete the sentence about North Island with the correct year: In ______ the New Zealand Geographic Board found that, along with the South Island, the North Island had no official name.
  2. Complete the sentence about South Island with the correct year: The North Island's population overtook the South Island's in the early 20th century, with 56% of the New Zealand population living in th…
  3. Complete the sentence about South Island with the correct year: A tourist train service called 'The Mainlander' is set to begin operating in January ______ between Christchurch, Dunedin and Invercargi…
  4. Complete the sentence about Kermadec Islands with the correct year: The first such vessel on record was the whaler Fanny that visited Raoul Island in ______.
  5. Complete the sentence about Kermadec Islands with the correct year: On 1 August ______, HMS Diamond annexed the islands for the United Kingdom.
  6. Complete the sentence about Kermadec Islands with the correct year: Letters patent issued on 18 January ______, assigned the islands to the colony of New Zealand following a request from the colony's…
  7. Complete the sentence about Kermadec Islands with the correct year: Morton who published their story in ______ as Crusoes of Sunday Island.
  8. Complete the sentence about Lake Pukaki with the correct year: The engraved image was based on an autumn ______ photograph by Ashburton photographer Bobbie Barwell.
  9. Complete the sentence about Whakaari with the correct year: The island has been in a nearly continuous stage of releasing volcanic gas at least since it was sighted by James Cook in ______.
  10. Complete the sentence about Arthur's Pass with the correct year: In ______, Arthur's brother Edward Henry Dobson joined him and accompanied him over the watershed into the valley of the Ōtira River.
  11. Complete the sentence about Arthur's Pass with the correct year: In ______ a power station was built below the Devil's Punchbowl Falls to provide electricity for the tunnel construction and for the vi…
  12. Complete the sentence about Arthur's Pass with the correct year: The railway from Christchurch reached Arthur's Pass township in ______, the Westland section having advanced to Otira.
  13. Complete the sentence about Arthur's Pass with the correct year: Construction of the tunnel was very slow: it finished in ______, and its opening was marked by the British and Intercolonial Exhibition…
  14. Complete the sentence about Arthur's Pass with the correct year: In ______, Arthur's Pass National Park was established by the Governor-General of New Zealand, as New Zealand's third national park.
  15. Complete the sentence about Mount Aspiring National Park with the correct year: Mount Aspiring National Park was established in ______ as New Zealand's tenth national park.
  16. Complete the sentence about Mount Aspiring National Park with the correct year: In April ______ the Nature Heritage Fund purchased private land in the Landsborough River valley as an addition to the p…
  17. Complete the sentence about Mount Aspiring National Park with the correct year: In December ______, the New Zealand Conservation Authority declined to adopt the amendment to the Management Plan.
  18. Complete the sentence about Mount Aspiring National Park with the correct year: In ______ the National-led government of New Zealand indicated that Mount Aspiring National Park may be opened up to min…
  19. Complete the sentence about Egmont National Park with the correct year: The official name of the park was changed from Egmont National Park to Te Papa-Kura-o-Taranaki on 1 April ______.
  20. Complete the sentence about Egmont National Park with the correct year: In ______, Captain James Cook first saw Mount Taranaki from his ship HMS Endeavour.
  21. Complete the sentence about Kapiti Island with the correct year: When James Cook visited New Zealand during his ______ survey, he called it Entry Island or Entry Isle, but Cook's name did not come int…
  22. Complete the sentence about Kapiti Island with the correct year: The island was surveyed in ______ during the first voyage of James Cook.
  23. Complete the sentence about Kapiti Island with the correct year: Te Rauparaha encouraged European ships to visit Kapiti, which by ______ became a centre for the New Zealand flax trade.
  24. Complete the sentence about Kapiti Island with the correct year: By ______, no members of Ngāti Toa permanently lived on the island, but occasionally visited for the island's resources.
  25. Complete the sentence about Rangitoto Island with the correct year: No supporting evidence for these hypothesised small eruptions up to ______ yrs before the main eruption of Rangitoto was found.
  26. Complete the sentence about Great Barrier Island with the correct year: Early European interest followed discovery of copper in the remote north, where New Zealand's earliest mines were established at…
  27. Complete the sentence about Tuatara with the correct year: During routine maintenance work at Zealandia in late ______, a tuatara nest was uncovered, with a hatchling found the following autumn.
  28. Complete the sentence about Tuatara with the correct year: Tuatara were originally classified as lizards in ______ when the British Museum received a skull.
  29. Complete the sentence about Tuatara with the correct year: The genus remained misclassified as a lizard until ______, when Albert C.
  30. Complete the sentence about Tuatara with the correct year: Williston in ______ proposed the Sphenodontia to include only tuatara and their closest fossil relatives.
  31. Complete the sentence about Kākāpō with the correct year: All conservation efforts were unsuccessful until the Kākāpō Recovery Programme began in ______.
  32. Complete the sentence about Kākāpō with the correct year: The kākāpō was formally described and illustrated in ______ by the English ornithologist George Robert Gray.
  33. Complete the sentence with the correct year: One was caught by a rabbiter's dog on the eastern side of Lake Te Anau in ______.
  34. Complete the sentence about Weta with the correct year: In New Zealand there were as of ______ 19 genera of tokoriri, and their taxonomy is under review.
  35. Complete the sentence about Weta with the correct year: Seven new species of South Island cave wētā were named and described in ______, including Pleioplectron rodmorrisi.
  36. Complete the sentence about Hector's dolphin with the correct year: The species was scientifically described by Belgian zoologist Pierre-Joseph van Beneden in ______.
  37. Complete the sentence about Pōhutukawa with the correct year: The first published reference to pōhutakawa as a Christmas tree was in ______, in a newspaper report of a feast held by Eruera Patuone.
  38. Complete the sentence about Pōhutukawa with the correct year: Plans to build a monument in honour of victims of the Erebus Disaster in proximity to the tree activated significant local opposition in _…
  39. Complete the sentence about Silver fern with the correct year: The species was moved to the genus Cyathea by Olof Swartz in ______, leading to the scientific name Cyathea dealbata.
  40. Complete the sentence about Silver fern with the correct year: The species was moved to the genus Alsophila in ______ by Rolla M.
  41. Complete the sentence about Silver fern with the correct year: During the ______ Suez Crisis, Egyptians took exception to New Zealand and Canadian peacekeepers having the Union Flag on their uniforms.
  42. Which place completes this sentence about Hamilton, New Zealand? The settlement was named by Colonel William Moule after Captain John Fane Charles Hamilton, the commander of HMS Esk, who was killed in…
  43. Which place completes this sentence about Palmerston North? The west coast railway was built in 1886, linking the town to ______, and Palmerston North benefited from a booming pastoral farming industr…
  44. Which place completes this sentence about Napier, New Zealand? Ngāti Kahungunu later became the dominant force from Poverty Bay to ______.
  45. Which place completes this sentence about Whanganui? The New Zealand Company began to settle the area in 1840, establishing its second settlement after ______.
  46. Which place completes this sentence about Timaru? The urban area's population of 29,300 people is the largest in South Canterbury, and the third-largest in the Canterbury Region overall, after ______…
  47. Which place completes this sentence about Taupō? Taupō is the largest urban area in the Taupō District, and the second-largest in the Waikato region, behind ______.
  48. Which place completes this sentence about Blenheim, New Zealand? In 1859, nineteen years after the original ______ settlement, the request of Marlborough settlers was granted, and Marlborough became a…
  49. Which place completes this sentence about Hastings, New Zealand? Hastings is about 18 kilometres south of the coastal city of ______.
  50. Which place completes this sentence about Sky Tower? Since its completion in 1997, the Sky Tower has become an iconic landmark in ______'s skyline, due to its height and design.
  51. Which place completes this sentence about Te Papa? The Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa is New Zealand's national museum and is located in ______.
  52. Which place completes this sentence about Mount Tarawera? Located 24 kilometres southeast of ______, it consists of a series of rhyolitic lava domes that were fissured down the middle by an explosive…
  53. Which place completes this sentence about Lake Taupō? Lake ______ is in a caldera created mainly by a supervolcanic eruption which occurred approximately 25,600 years ago.
  54. Which place completes this sentence about Banks Peninsula? The South Island's largest city, ______, is immediately north of the peninsula, which is administered by Christchurch City Council.
  55. Which place completes this sentence about Banks Peninsula? In the late 1840s, the Canterbury Association in England chose the central South Island as the site for a model English colony with ______ as…
  56. Which place completes this sentence about Otago Peninsula? The total population of the peninsula is under 10,000, with about half of these in the suburbs of ______ that encroach onto its western end…
  57. Which place completes this sentence about Coromandel Peninsula? Volcanic activity has since primarily shifted southeast to the ______ Volcanic Zone, although Mayor Island / Tūhua some 25 km to the eas…
  58. Which place completes this sentence about Waikato River? From the point where the river meets the Waihohonu Stream, down to Lake ______, it has been formally named the Tongariro River since 1945.
  59. Which place completes this sentence about Arthur's Pass? The railway from ______ reached Arthur's Pass township in 1914, the Westland section having advanced to Otira.
  60. Which place completes this sentence about Mount Aspiring National Park? The tunnel would have established a connection via Glenorchy and would have significantly reduced the current return travel time…
  61. Which place completes this sentence about Waiheke Island? Though little data supports this, the following data from a NIWA report suggests Waiheke receives over 100 hours more sunshine a year than oth…
  62. Which place completes this sentence about New Zealand sea lion? The main breeding populations are at the ______ and Campbell Islands in the New Zealand subantarctic, where approximately 99% of the spe…
  63. Which place completes this sentence about Pōhutukawa? A pōhutukawa tree with an estimated age of 180 years known as 'Te Hā' is fully established at an ______ City park. 'Te Hā' is the largest urban sp…

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