Kiwis, Sheep, World's Steepest Street: Five Things To Know About New Zealand

Wellington, (APP - UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 12th Oct, 2023) New Zealanders vote in a general election this Saturday with Prime Minister Chris Hipkins' centre-left government seeking to be elected for a third term.

Here are five things to know about the South Pacific nation of five million people and 25 million sheep:

- Sheep to people ratio -

New Zealand is one of the world's biggest wool exporters, last year sending US$284 million worth overseas. At the same time, it exported US$2.5 billion of sheep meat.

Over time, rising farming costs and falling wool prices have led national sheep numbers to dwindle from a high of 72 million in the 1980s to the latest tally of 25.3 million.

Sheep outnumber people at just under five to one, according to the government body Stats NZ, their lowest lead over humans since the 1850s.

New Zealanders have far fewer of the woolly grazers than Australia, home to 26 million people and 78 million sheep, despite frequently being the butt of sheep jokes from their Trans-Tasman neighbours.

- World's steepest street -

Baldwin Street in Dunedin, which had previously held the record for over a decade, was reinstated as the world's steepest street in 2020 after the title switched to Ffordd Pen Llech, in Harlech, Wales, the previous year.

Guinness Book of Records officials conducted a review after the New Zealanders appealed, measuring the gradient from the centreline of both streets, which showed Dunedin was steeper at 34.

8 percent, compared to 28.6 percent on the Welsh road.

"The issue of gradient was technical in nature only. There was no bad feeling toward the people of Harlech," said surveyor Toby Stoff, who led the Baldwin Street appeal.

- Return of wild kiwis -

New Zealanders are nicknamed 'kiwis' after the flightless native birds that are under threat in the wild.

Introduced predators -- in particular, stoats brought in to curb New Zealand's rampant rabbit population -- have led to a sharp drop in the kiwi population.

There are only around 70,000 wild kiwis left in New Zealand but more than 90 nationwide community initiatives are working to protect their numbers by removing invasive predators.

- Proud firsts -

New Zealand was the first self-governing country to enshrine in law women's right to vote in parliamentary elections, signing the Electoral Act on September 19, 1893.

The country is also the birthplace of mountaineer Sir Edmund Hillary, who along with sherpa Tenzing Norgay was the first to climb Mount Everest on May 29, 1953.

Kate Sheppard, the leading light in New Zealand's suffragette movement in the 19th century, appears on the country's $10 bills while Hillary's portrait adorns $5 notes.