New Zealand
POPULATION 3,908,037
ANGLICAN 17 percent
PROTESTANT 21 percent
ROMAN CATHOLIC 15 percent
MAORI CHRISTIAN (RATANA AND RINGATU) 1.5 percent
OTHER CHRISTIAN 5 percent
BUDDHIST 1 percent
HINDU 1 percent
ISLAM. 5 percent
OTHER 1 percent
NONRELIGIOUS 37 percent
Country Overview
Introduction
New Zealand consists of two major islands, North and South, located deep in the southern Pacific Ocean almost a thousand miles east of Australia. The climate ranges from semitropical in the far north of the North Island to cool and temperate in the far south of the South Island. The Polynesian ancestors of the Maori people first settled the country in the thirteenth century C.E. After fleeting visits by Dutch explorer Abel Tasman in the seventeenth century and Captain James Cook in the late eighteenth century, organized British settlement began in 1840. By this time many of the country's Maori had adopted Christianity. English and Scottish Protestants, mainly Anglican and Presbyterian, and a smaller group of Irish Catholics dominated the main waves of settlement from the United Kingdom. Most colonists were from lower middle class or working class backgrounds, and they came in search of a better life. They sought to establish an egalitarian society with opportunity for all that no class or church could dominate.
