New Zealand became the first self-governing country where women won the right to vote in national elections, in 1893.
The Electoral Act 1893 received royal assent on 19 September 1893. It enfranchised adult women, including Māori women, for elections to New Zealand's national Parliament. Women then voted in the general election held in November and December of that year.
The achievement followed decades of campaigning led by activists including Kate Sheppard and the Women's Christian Temperance Union. Petitions, public meetings, and organized political pressure helped overcome repeated parliamentary resistance. New Zealand women could vote, but they could not yet stand for Parliament; that right arrived in 1919.
A common mix-up is to describe New Zealand as the first place where women ever voted. Some earlier jurisdictions allowed limited female voting, but New Zealand was the first self-governing country to establish broad women's suffrage at the national level.