New Zealand was the last habitable land mass to be populated in the World and with a total land area is 263,884 km² (101,886 sq. miles) it is quite a small country. It’s just a bit bigger than the size of Great Britain (209,331 km²) and a little smaller than Japan (377,962 km²) but is almost 36 times smaller than the size of the USA which is 9.834 million km².
Population is another interesting comparison and you realise why tourists love New Zealand and the wild outdoors.
With a population of about 4.7 million people the population density is relatively low, at 15 people per km² which is less than half the OECD average and higher than only Australia, Iceland, Canada and Norway. Compare the population to Great Britain (which is a little smaller) of almost 65 million and Japan (which is a little larger) which has about 127 million and it highlights how few people we have in New Zealand.
Colorado is a bit bigger than New Zealand with 269,601 km² (104,093 sq. miles) and is the 8th largest state.
Aotearoa is the Maori name for the country of New Zealand. The literal translation of Aotearoa is “land of the long white cloud” and this is quite a good name given the long shape of New Zealand where there is no place further than 170 km from the sea.