New Zealand became the first self-governing country to grant women the right to vote in national elections, doing so in 1893. The law followed a long campaign led prominently by Kate Sheppard and the Women’s Christian Temperance Union.
The Electoral Act was signed on 19 September 1893, and women voted in New Zealand’s general election later that year. The achievement concerned voting rights, not every political right: New Zealand women could vote before they could stand for Parliament.
A common mix-up is naming Finland, which became the first country to give women both the right to vote and the right to stand for election in 1906. New Zealand’s milestone remains earlier, but its legal and political reforms developed in stages.