What is the capital of New Zealand?

Wellington, chosen in 1865 over Auckland because it was more central to both islands and because South Island settlers, then enriched by gold, were threatening to form a separate colony if the capital stayed in the north. Three commissioners from Australia were brought in to make the decision so it could not be blamed on anyone local.

It is the southernmost capital city in the world, and the windiest - it sits in a gap between two mountain ranges through which the Roaring Forties funnel, with gusts over 200 km/h recorded. It is also built across an active fault line that runs through the middle of the city, which is visible in the street layout and in a great deal of expensive base-isolation engineering.

The country is one of the few to have had a genuine constitutional debate about its own foundations rather than only its capital. The Treaty of Waitangi of 1840 exists in English and Maori versions that do not say the same thing - the English cedes sovereignty, the Maori cedes kawanatanga, governance, while retaining rangatiratanga, chieftainship. That discrepancy is not a translation curiosity; it is the live legal question underlying land claims and the Waitangi Tribunal to this day.