The North Island (Māori: Te Ika-a-Māui) is one of the two main islands of New Zealand, separated from the slightly larger but much less populous South Island by Cook Strait. The island is 113,729 square kilometres (43,911 sq mi) in area, making it the world's 14th-largest island. It has a population of 3,393,900 (June 2012 estimate).
Twelve cities are in the North Island: Auckland, New Plymouth, Tauranga, Gisborne, Napier, Hamilton, Hastings, Palmerston North, Rotorua, Wanganui, Whangarei and Wellington, the capital, located at the southern extremity of the island. Approximately 77% of New Zealand's population lives in the North Island.
Read more about North Island: Naming and Usage, Māori Mythology, Economy, Ecology, Regions of The North Island, Cities and Towns in The North Island, Healthcare, Geographic Features
Famous quotes containing the words north and/or island:
“When the Somalians were merely another hungry third world people, we sent them guns. Now that they are falling down dead from starvation, we send them troops. Some may see in this a tidy metaphor for the entire relationship between north and south. But it would make a whole lot more sense nutritionally—as well as providing infinitely more vivid viewing—if the Somalians could be persuaded to eat the troops.”
—Barbara Ehrenreich (b. 1941)
“The shifting islands! who would not be willing that his house should be undermined by such a foe! The inhabitant of an island can tell what currents formed the land which he cultivates; and his earth is still being created or destroyed. There before his door, perchance, still empties the stream which brought down the material of his farm ages before, and is still bringing it down or washing it away,—the graceful, gentle robber!”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)