PETpla.net Insider 09 / 2020

EDITOUR PETplanet Insider Vol. 21 No. 09/20 www.petpla.net 17 To the south-east of Australia lies New Zealand, which is divided into two main and over 700 small islands. New Zealand has a land area of around 270,000 km 2 that stretches mostly (97.6%) across the North and South Islands; these have around 114,000 km 2 and 150,000 km 2 respectively. From north to south, the islands extend about 1,600 km, while from east to west they reach no wider than 300 km. The Cook Strait, which separates the two main islands, is no more than 23 km wide. Seven archi- pelagos form New Zealand’s Off- shore Islands. These include the Ker- madec Islands in the far north, which are around 980 km to the north of the main islands, and Campbell Island, around 590 km south-east of Stewart Island, New Zealand’s third-largest inhabited island south of the main South Island. The hilly topography of the city of Auckland is the result of its initial establishment on 53 inactive volcanoes, part of the Pacific Ring of Fire, which lies under vast stretches of the country, making it a potential earthquake zone. Mountain ranges running from north to south on the main islands and a predominant west wind foster a damp climate in the west and a drier climate in the east. In contrast to Australia, the climate is predominantly temperate, apart from a subtropical section on the tip of the North Island and the cool southern point of the South Island. The average annual temperature is around 16 °C in the north and 10 °C in the south, usually with 600mm to 1,600mm of rainfall and a range throughout the year of 10 °C to 30 °C. Mount Ruapehu (2,792m) is the high- est point on the North Island and is situated in Tongariro National Park, which has been designated a Unesco World Heritage Site. Mount Cook (3,724m) is the highest point on the South Island. Around three quarters of the approximately 4.8 million New Zea- landers live on the North Island, where both Auckland, with around 1.66 million inhabitants (2017), and the capital Wellington, with almost 213,000 inhabitants, are situated. As in Australia, the average age of New Zealanders is around 38, and the pop- ulation density was estimated in 2019 to be around 18 per square kilometre. The Twelve Apostles at the Great Ocean Road, Victoria, Australia Relative to its settlement density, New Zealand’s travel infrastructure is well-developed. According to the LPI (see above), the country ranked 15 th in 2018, behind the USA and ahead of France. Besides coastal ship- ping – New Zealand’s coastline is over 15,000 km long – road and flight transport form the logistics backbone. In 2013, the country boasted almost 94,000 km of road network, of which around 18,000 km were not asphalted or concreted. In addition, it is among the countries with the highest number of airports per inhabitant. In 2019, the Heritage Foundation ranked the country third behind Hong Kong and Singapore on the Economic Mount Cook area, Canterbury, New Zealand German Technology