Which country is mainly made up of the North Island and South Island?

Which country is mainly made up of the North Island and South Island? New Zealand is the country built around those two main islands.

The North Island, or Te Ika-a-Māui, and the South Island, or Te Waipounamu, contain most of New Zealand’s population and land area. They are separated by Cook Strait, whose narrowest crossing is about 22 kilometres. New Zealand also includes more than 600 smaller islands, including Stewart Island/Rakiura and the Chatham Islands.

The South Island is the larger of the two and is dominated by the Southern Alps, including Aoraki/Mount Cook. The North Island has more volcanic activity and contains the country’s largest city, Auckland, as well as the capital, Wellington. Both islands sit in the southwestern Pacific, southeast of Australia across the Tasman Sea.

A common mix-up is treating New Zealand as a single island. Its two principal islands are sometimes called the “mainland,” while the country officially includes many outlying islands as well. The Māori names of the two main islands were formally recognised alongside their English names in 2013.