science

Omission of New Zealand from maps

Omission of New Zealand from maps is a science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Omission of New Zealand from maps rather than just read about it. In short: New Zealand has often been omitted from maps of the world, which has caught the attention of New Zealanders. It is considered that this is because of the widespread use of the Mercator projection and the common mapping practice of putting Europe in the centre, which leaves New Zealand in the bottom right-hand corner of maps, sometimes making it go overlooked by mapmakers, easily removed by an accidental crop, or sim…

Key takeaways

Omission of New Zealand from maps belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Omission of New Zealand from maps to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Omission of New Zealand from maps from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

New Zealand has often been omitted from maps of the world, which has caught the attention of New Zealanders. It is considered that this is because of the widespread use of the Mercator projection and the common mapping practice of putting Europe in the centre, which leaves New Zealand in the bottom right-hand corner of maps, sometimes making it go overlooked by mapmakers, easily removed by an accidental crop, or simply not added for convenience, ignorance or laziness. New Zealand has been excluded from maps at the National Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C., in the United States, in IKEA stores, on the map of the board games Pandemic and Risk, on the map of the 2014 Nuclear Security Summit in which Prime Minister of New Zealand John Key participated, at a world map seal at the United Nations Office at Geneva in Switzerland, on the newspaper Daily Mail, on Government Executive's newsletter Defense One, on the magazine Forbes, on the digital media platform Mashable, on the Pyongyang International Airport in North Korea and on the logo of the Flat Earth Society. It was also excluded from maps promoting the 2015 Rugby World Cup even though New Zealand was the world champion at the time. In 2016, a tourist from New Zealand was detained at the Almaty International Airport by Kazakh immigration officers who believed hers was not an autonomous country, but a part of Australia; the world map available on the walls of the immigration office did not include New Zealand, so the tourist could not use it to convince the officers. This recurrence has become a meme for New Zealanders. There is a community on Tumblr titled World Maps Without New Zealand and a Reddit community, or subreddit, known as r/MapsWithoutNZ both focused on this issue with 10,000 and 30,000 members respectively as of 2017. In 2019, a user in r/MapsWithoutNZ noticed that a map, "BJÖRKSTA world map", on sale for US$30 at an IKEA store in Washington, D.C., did not portray New Zealand. Subsequently, IKEA apologised and removed the product from its stores. On Reddit, there are also similar communities about the omission of Flevoland in the Netherlands, Hawaii in the United States, and Tasmania in Australia from maps. The New Zealand Government acknowledged this phenomenon, featuring a map of the world in which the country was deliberately not included on the 404 error page of its official website; the page stated that "something's missing". Furthermore, in 2018, a tourism campaign video was published in which then Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and the New Zealand actor and comedian Rhys Darby discussed why New Zealand was being left off world maps. In the video, Darby jokingly said that it was the result of a conspiracy against New Zealand. The video promoted the hashtag #getnzonthemap.

See also Omission of Tasmania from maps of Australia

References

External links World Maps Without New Zealand on Tumblr r/MapsWithoutNZ on Reddit

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Omission of New Zealand from maps

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Omission of New Zealand from maps claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Omission of New Zealand from maps before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Omission of New Zealand from maps ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Omission of New Zealand from maps

In research: Omission of New Zealand from maps appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Omission of New Zealand from maps in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Omission of New Zealand from maps is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Controversies in New Zealand, Internet memes introduced in 2014, New Zealand humour, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Omission of New Zealand from maps outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

Ask Teacher Smith questions about this articleOpens your AI tutor with a question about “Omission of New Zealand from maps” →

Affiliate

Preply — study more efficiently by working with a personal tutor. 50% off.

How to study Omission of New Zealand from maps in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Omission of New Zealand from maps means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Omission of New Zealand from maps out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Omission of New Zealand from maps in simple terms?

Why does Omission of New Zealand from maps matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Omission of New Zealand from maps?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Omission of New Zealand from maps.