Why Is New Zealand So Often Left Off World Maps? | Hacker News Reader

Why Is New Zealand So Often Left Off World Maps?

atlasobscura.com

44 pointsprando49 comments

As a new zealander this is my favourite map projection anyway https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peirce_quincuncial_projection#...

Huh, sure puts a lot of distance between the mainland and west island...

I don’t get it; the mainland is clearly just above Te Ika a Maui in that map.

I think west island means australia

yep. the 'mainland' in NZ refers to a chunk of the Sth Island - from back in the day when english migrants were busy recreating the english aristocracy.

I reject your reality and substitute my own :-)

He's out in-joke-ing me. West Island is a derogatory reference to Australia, implying it's just a minor territory of NZ (north and south island being 'mainland').

But, 'mainland' is often used by South Island NZers to suggest that the north island (by far the most populous) is nothing more than a secondary 'non-main' island.

> As a new zealander this is my favourite map projection anyway https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peirce_quincuncial_projection#...

Semi-relevant: https://xkcd.com/977/

I guess this is a domain specific issue? Right here in Australia, I know that Tasmanians are regularly upset at being left off even localised maps of Australia. I am sure other countries have small islands or principalities who get left off due to time/scale/space constraints.

I also recall that when growing up in Malaysia, our school books always had maps of the world with Malaysia itself being at the center of the page, and usually scaled up to be proportionally far bigger that it really is in comparison to its neighbouring countries?

Maybe that is is though - perhaps the Lamberts conformal orthogonic projection will make the very southern latitude New Zealand look almost as big as Australia and other powerful countries? Can't have that for a "mostly harmless" country - one of the few countries in the world with NO Navy or Air Force... ;) (For the record, I have visited, and LOVE NZ).

EDIT: Apologies to NZ HNers about the 'no navy or air force' comment - it appears I was misinformed by the former NZAF pilot I met at a bar in Auckland on one of my trips there. :)

> one of the few countries in the world with NO Navy or Air Force

New Zealand has a navy [1]! Back when I lived in Wellington they ran recruiting commercials non-stop.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_New_Zealand_Navy

At the movie theater before films. And those commercials—even as an avowed peacenik—always made us chuckle as both my wife and I remembered the over-the-top US military recruitment ads. By comparison the NZ navy’s ads felt downright quaint.

We lived in Devonport for some time, and so were pretty accustomed to seeing at least one or two naval ships whenever we took the ferry into downtown Auckland, which was all the time because jobs, friends, and stuff to do were all in town.

On the flip-side, Australia ran invade NZ commercials

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7xUYbI64QHI

albeit tongue in cheek!

(Potentially where the no army/navy/air force myth came from?)

We have both an an air force and a navy. But given the high cost of maintaining fighters/strike aircraft, it's not a very potent air force in a fight - but it's a very potent air force when it comes to humanitarian assistance and monitoring our EEZ.

https://www.radionz.co.nz/news/national/352785/rnzaf-orion-j...

In addition to its current small but capable armed forces, New Zealand has a storied military history-- in World War II the nation suffered twice as many casualties as the United States, as a percentage of population.

In addition to that, New Zealanders are remarkably familiar with statistics, as the country tends to only ever measure its achievements on a per capita basis.

I think the funnier thing about our Air Force is that their logo is a flightless bird inside a bulls-eye...

That map placement style is a plot point in The King and I.

> Most world maps use the Mercator projection. This 16th-century projection leaves New Zealand in the bottom right-hand corner of the world, and places Europe in the center.

That's not intrinsic to a Mercator projection...

I'm a kiwi who has lived in North America for over a decade. It's astounding to me how many people I've met have no idea where New Zealand is or believe it is near Scandinavia or Iceland - I'm not sure that issue is due to NZ missing from a map occasionally though! Likewise with the number of people who believe New Zealand is really part of Australia.

Nothing to see there anyway... full of sheep, hobbits and the odd moose some say.

Sadly I don't think many got the moose reference [1][2]. :(

[1] https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/103196185/new-zealands-moos... [2] https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/104071821/there-are-signs-m...

Well, logically, it would be in the North Sea off Old Zeeland.

Its readily taught in the US that NZ is apart of the Australian continent and not Zealandia. We are taught 7 continents thus NZ is closest to Australia so we go with that, no need for specifics...

Eh, Zealandia doesn't make most lists of continents. It's more traditional to say that New Zealand is not part of a continent.

We are part of of Australasia, but not Australia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australasia

I'm a kiwi, who lived in the US from the age of 8 to 13 (1998 - 2003).

I remember getting into a massive argument with an Elementary school teacher who tried to tell me I was wrong when I told her that my country was not in fact part of the country of Australia (not just continent, but she was adamant it was part of the Australian country).

Bad news mate, much like we claim anyone famous from NZ, we also claim the entire land mass:

Australian constitution, premable [corrected]:

"The States shall mean such of the colonies of New South Wales, New Zealand, Queensland, Tasmania, Victoria, Western Australia, and South Australia, including the northern territory of South Australia [...] and each of such parts of the Commonwealth shall be called a State."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Section_6_of_the_Constitution_...

Apparently those words mean NZ is "pre-approved" to join the Commonwealth of Australia and she can unilaterally join at a time of her choosing [1]. If true, it would make for an interesting scenario if acted upon.

[1] http://www.diskiller.net/nzstatehood/

---

The words are actually in section 6 (definitions) of the preamble, not section 6 in the main body of the constitution.

Hah, yeah I wasn't really suggesting it. Just one of those quirks. I am no lawyer but I suspect we couldn't write up some paperwork to claim a country without them agreeing to it anyway.

Going through a world map game a few times helped this American to make fewer such mistakes: https://online.seterra.com/en/vgp/3069 https://lizardpoint.com/geography/world-countries-quiz.php

But it is a part of Australia, at least as far as the Australian Constitution is concerned -- check out section 6:

https://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/Senate/Powers_practi...

Some seriously convoluted run on sentences in there.

I just Googled "us map" and, of the first 32 results, Hawaii and Alaska are missing from 6 of them.

You forgot Puerto Rico, Guam, etc...

Google "map of France." I see only one in the first 32 that includes French Guiana ("fully" French, use Euro, etc).

Well, French Guiana isn't part of Metropolitan France, is it?

Please stop calling our country Middle Earth.

I think we have our own marketing department to blame for that...

Australia is called Oz, the Antipodes must be a realm of wonders.

Then stop making Hobbit movies there.

Don't worry, I know it best as Xena's homeland.

It's amazing how one, admittedly enormous, place in pop-culture history can define an entire country in the mind's of a majority of the first world's population. I imagine you feel the same way as people from Alabama and/or the Louisiana coast feel about Forrest Gump references.

I imagine NZ is full of vampires and werewolves.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/What_We_Do_in_the_Shadows

There is a funny blog dedicated to this topic:

http://worldmapswithout.nz

And the subreddit https://www.reddit.com/r/mapswithoutnewzealand/

https://www.reddit.com/r/mapswithoutnewzealand/

lol it's cos we don't want anyone to know where it is. Why tell everyone about such a nice place? :)

Successful advertising campaign? Wasn't expecting it to turn up here!

https://mashable.com/2018/05/01/get-new-zealand-on-the-map/

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