their distinct Moriori culture. Due to New Zealand's geographic isolation, 500 years passed before the next phase of settlement, the arrival of Europeans. Only then did the indigenous inhabitants need to distinguish themselves from the new arrivals, using the term "Māori" which means "normal" or "ordinary". Between the mid-1840s through to the 1860s, disputes over questionable land purchases led to the New Zealand Wars, which resulted in large tracts of tribal land being confiscated by the colonial government. Settlements such as Parihaka in Taranaki have become almost legendary because of injustices done there. With the loss of much of their land coupled with high fatality rate due to introduced diseases and epidemics, Māori went into a period of decline, and in the late 19th century it was believed that the Māori population would cease to exist as a separate race and would be assimilated into the European population. However, the predicted decline did not occur, and numbers recovered. Despite a high degree of intermarriage between Māori and European populations, Māori were able to retain their cultural identity and in the 1960s and 1970s Māoridom underwent a cultural revival. The Māori population has seen stability in the 21st century. In the 2013 Census, 598,602 people identified as being part of the Māori ethnic group, accounting for 14.9% of the New Zealand population, while 668,724 people (17.5%) claimed Māori descent. 278,199 people identified as of sole Māori ethnicity, while 291,015 identified as of both European and Māori ethnicity (with or without a third ethnicity), due to a high rate of intermarriage between the two cultures. Under the Maori Affairs Amendment Act 1974, a Māori is defined as "a person of the Māori race of New Zealand; and includes any descendant of such a person", replacing an earlier legal application based on an arbitrarily defined "degree of Maori blood". According to the 2006 census, the largest iwi by population is Ngāpuhi (125,601), followed by Ngāti Porou (71,049), Ngāi Tahu (54,819) and Waikato (40,083). However, over 110,000 people of Māori descent in the 2013 census could not identify their iwi. Outside of New Zealand, a large Māori population exists in Australia, estimated at 155,000 in 2011. The Māori Party has suggested a special seat should be created in the New Zealand parliament representing Māori in Australia. Smaller communities also exist in the United Kingdom (approx. 8,000), the United States (up to 3,500) and Canada