New Zealand vs America?

Question

Can someone tell me the differences in climate, economy, politics, culture etc. between New Zealand and America?

Answer 1

Climate is more temperate here, that means its not so extreme in being not too cold or too hot ( REALLY hot here is say 35oC or a little higher....not much more however). As the country is spread out you get semi tropical in the far north ( no frosts) to pretty cool in the south ( but not OVERLY unplesant)....there is actually a lot of difference in the South Island from West ( VERY wet eg 7-9metres of rain a year) to the east coast ( VERY dry eg 500mm a year) due to mountains.....climate is variable tho, but as I said not as extreme as in continental climates...maybe a bit windier and wetter in parts due to lots of sea around us.

Economy is supposed to be pretty good....its small and we pretty muhc follow the other main players in the world ( eg has been described as a cork floating on the ocean)...have low inflation, although things are not look AS rosey as they have been ,still supposed to be good....have low unemployement ( eg 4% but it varies over the country, in some places its MUCH lower due to need for workers)

politically I would say we are VERY stable......even tho people moan it would be one of the most, if not most stable places politically in the world....I remember hearing this a few months ago.

Culture......pretty multicultural now really.....there is the Maori culture which is more specific to NZ, but there are other cultures that are prominant here eg Korean, Chinese, Indian and pacific islanders but other cultures are becoming more prominant too.  Overall its british based but influenced by US, lots of similarity to Australia and a bit of our own.

Love sports!!! Pretty varied in tastes, but main things are rugby ( union and leage), cricket, netball, but we have lots of sports people who are household names from other areas like rowing, track and field.

Lower income than OZ/UK/US so cost of living can be higher. Also due to distance from rest of world, things take longer, have less choice or cost more as a result, but you live with it or find bargins!

people are pretty relaxed here in general....although there are always the exceptions.....like to have a "no worries" and "she'll be right" attitude....like nothing is a problem or it'll sort itself out......so we are generally well liked by most other countries BUT as I said there are always exceptions and some people are narrow minded jerks.....but I think they are a minority.

Answer 2

Perhaps a place to start would be www.stats.govt.nz and there you will find all the statistics that will answer most of your questions.

As far as your other interests ar concerned here in New Zealand you will be in Hog heaven as we have a great outdoors lifestyle and as you may or not know when it comes to sports of all kinds we box way above our weight for a population of just over 4mil. One of the main reasons is that we have such a perfect environment for all types of outdoor activities. You name it we do it and most likely have a world champion or two in whatever activity you want to name.

You will find that you won't make a lot of money here although we do have some very wealthy people but they tend to keep their heads down for fear of having then chopped off. We call it the Tall Poppy Syndrome.

Come and see us. You will not be disappointed.