Why 80% of New Zealand is Empty

"New frames need analyzing; click Analyze" between 9:32 to 9:48

Next video be like: Why Antarctica is 99% empty

Why 80% of New Zealand is Empty.. because a salary is 50k a year after tax and a house is $1.5m

Having been fortunate to visit over 60 countries during my life, I can honestly say that New Zealand is the most beautiful country I have ever come across. I am too old to move anywhere now, but if I could, I would move there tomorrow and never look back.

One thing you didn't mention: Since the Polynesians had a tropical crop package, they couldn't undertake full-scale agriculture as effectively in temperate New Zealand. Their crops, like sweet potato and taro, only grew well on the North Island, and they somehow lost access to the domestic pigs and chickens that other Polynesians had. As a result, they reverted to more sporadic use of agriculture supplemented by hunting (and became almost entirely hunter-gatherers on the South Island). Introduction of the European crop package was revolutionary for the Maori - in particular potatoes, which grew much better in New Zealand and quickly displaced other tuber crops as a primary carbohydrate source - but it came too late, at earliest probably during Captain Cook's exhibition. Contrast this to Madagascar, which was only settled a few centuries earlier, but developed dense populations in the highlands, because the area was conducive to high-intensity rice farming, which happened to be one of the crops the initial settlers from Borneo took with them.

As a New Zealander, I always assumed everyone knew us for our cows and milk, and didn't know for ages that everyone thought we were sheep people

As a kiwi i lived in CANADA for 30 years and traveled extensively there and the USA, living back in NZ its great ,the climate, pace of life ,civil society is great ,personal freedoms, ect love the place

As a NZ'er, this was almost entirely accurate. The untrue part was that Maori found NZ by accident. They had astrologers with star maps and also recognized that masses of migrating birds passing through Pacific Islands had to come from a southern land mass. Migrations to NZ were planned and successful.

RealLifeLore, I'm just shaking my head over here in Wellington New Zealand in disbelief. You missed and misstated so many important historical, economic, and scientific points that are easily discovered and clarified by a quick web search. For instance, the 58 percent casualty rate of New Zealanders at Gallipoli, not to mention the rest of WWI in which 20% of the male population left NZ, and only 4 out of 5 returned. Those who did return included many severely wounded physically and emotionally. This percentage of the population represented the men who would have been starting families in the late 'teens and '20s. Many in NZ feel this was one important reason that the population didn't grow as fast as Australia or other Commonwealth countries. Another huge hole in this analysis: NZ's lack of certain essential trace minerals, like selenium, iodine, and chromium. While these may be imported today, their lack in previous centuries may have had an effect on the quality of food grown here. But the worst is mistaking the Australian flag as the NZ flag. If I were running a channel on geopolitical analysis and commentary and I got the flag wrong in a video, I'd take that video down and rerelease it - even if I got a quarter million views in the first few hours. My dude, you can do so much better than this. Fun fact: the NZ flag design predates the Aussie flag design, so we're not copying them as some sort of little footnote in their political sphere.

Love your work usually, but I can’t help but feel the quality has slipped a little in this one. We’re used to the typical mispronunciations and etc, but this one needed a little more. With the wrong flag displayed, pictures of ijen crater (not in NZ) and leftover notifications from premier, this one could’ve done with a bit more polishing. Not sure if it’s just me but the audio is also a little off in this one. Could just be new equipment or not processing fully, not sure. Always love your work, hopefully this doesn’t become a regular thing

We truly enjoyed your video this week and so look forward to the next! Thank you! In another note, regarding Jason’s comment about your videos of special places being not good enough, I beg to differ. Even a video in what you term as “not good enough” to capture the grandeur, those of us who haven’t been there would most certainly enjoy them. Thank you again for doing many of the things we will never get to do. We are very appreciative!

Great Video - I loved how the stock footage (while could be of generic streets and suburbs) were all from NZ. Fantastic effort finding high quality and accurate footage

Part of the reason I love NZ is having low population, it’s great going to a city and there’s space to walk freely and if you get up early enough it’s almost like you’re the only person in town but all the shops are open just for you.

At 2:41 you circled the "Auckland region" but completely missed the actual city of Auckland, you mostly got the Kaipara Harbour instead of Manukau Harbour where Auckland is located

As a native - I love that most of our country is uninhabited - it keeps the land raw and untouched, offering amazing places to walk, hike, travel to by boat or horseback. Rushing rivers, peaceful lakes and roaring seas that aren't marred by too many houses - breathtaking! :)

On the Southern Island, I posted 2 pics that were theoretically 9 miles apart. But to get there, it was 7 hours of driving around the mountains. (Hooker Valley Track to Fox Glacier)

I love this channel but as a New Zealander i must point out that the Southern Alps were formed via a strike slip fault (which is the same kind of fault as the San Andreas) not by a subduction zone

An interesting note I found out about New Zealand is that MOST aircraft tracking systems originated in New Zealand. Apparently, in the 1970's, someone's airplane disappeared on the way to Australia. There was a massive search but no wreckage or survivors found. They said "Why can't we track aircraft?" and eventually, there were about a half dozen companies offering aircraft (and other vessel) tracking systems.

A flight from new sealand to Australia actually takes about 2 and a half hours, but I guess it’s not too far off

I am proud to be a Kiwi born and raised, and I thank you for going into the ups and downs of this Island, but New Zealand is a lot more than pretty places, unique species of plants/trees, and birds/animals, I don't think anyone realizes how much of a crisis many people are in and I wish it would be acknowledged more. Our economy, government, and schooling systems are terrible, and a lot of people are struggling to get by, and we are having a housing crisis. I just wanted to say this. It isn't a complete paradise, but if you love beautiful places you won't find anywhere else, a climate that never makes its mind up (🤣), species of animals and wildlife that aren't anywhere else with sometimes TOO kind people with an ungodly amount of money you'll spend. It's a great place to visit. Also, we may have enough cows and sheep and food production, but a lot of this land is being taken by real estate agents for housing because everyone needs money since we are in a recession where everything is unnecessarily expensive, and we won't get out of this recession for at least a few years yet. Thank you!