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West Coast, New Zealand
The West Coast ( mi, Te Tai Poutini, lit=The Coast of Poutini, the Taniwha) is a region of New Zealand on the west coast of the South Island that is administered by the West Coast Regional Council, and is known co-officially as Te Tai Poutini. It comprises the territorial authorities of Buller District, Grey District and Westland District. The principal towns are Westport, Greymouth and Hokitika. The region, one of the more remote areas of the country, is also the most sparsely populated. With a population of just 32,000 people, Te Tai Poutini is the least populous region in New Zealand, and it is the only region where the population is declining. The region has a rich and important history. The land itself is ancient, stretching back to the Carboniferous period; this is evident by the amount of carboniferous materials naturally found there, especially coal. First settled by Kāi Tahu in approximately 1200 CE, the area was famous across New Zealand for its richness in p ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Regions Of New Zealand
New Zealand is divided into sixteen regions () for local government purposes. Eleven are administered by regional councils (the top tier of local government), and five are administered by unitary authorities, which are territorial authorities (the second tier of local government) that also perform the functions of regional councils. The Chatham Islands Council is not a region but is similar to a unitary authority, authorised under its own legislation. Current regions History and statutory basis The regional councils are listed in Part 1 of Schedule 2 of the Local Government Act 2002, along with reference to the ''Gazette'' notices that established them in 1989. The Act requires regional councils to promote sustainable developmentthe social, economic, environmental and cultural well-being of their communities. The current regions and most of their councils came into being through a local government reform in 1989 that took place under the Local Government Act 1974. The ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ngāi Tahu
Ngāi Tahu, or Kāi Tahu, is the principal Māori (tribe) of the South Island. Its (tribal area) is the largest in New Zealand, and extends from the White Bluffs / Te Parinui o Whiti (southeast of Blenheim), Mount Mahanga and Kahurangi Point in the north to Stewart Island / Rakiura in the south. The comprises 18 (governance areas) corresponding to traditional settlements. Ngāi Tahu originated in the Gisborne District of the North Island, along with Ngāti Porou and Ngāti Kahungunu, who all intermarried amongst the local Ngāti Ira. Over time, all but Ngāti Porou would migrate away from the district. Several were already occupying the South Island prior to Ngāi Tahu's arrival, with Kāti Māmoe only having arrived about a century earlier from the Hastings District, and already having conquered Waitaha, who themselves were a collection of ancient groups. Other that Ngāi Tahu encountered while migrating through the South Island were Ngāi Tara, Rangitāne, Ngāti ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Southland, New Zealand
Southland ( mi, Murihiku) is New Zealand's southernmost region. It consists mainly of the southwestern portion of the South Island and Stewart Island/Rakiura. It includes Southland District, Gore District and the city of Invercargill. The region covers over 3.1 million hectares and spans over 3,400 km of coast. History The earliest inhabitants of Murihiku (meaning "the last joint of the tail") were Māori of the Waitaha iwi, followed later by Kāti Māmoe and Kāi Tahu. Waitaha sailed on the Uruao waka, whose captain Rakaihautū named sites and carved out lakes throughout the area. The Takitimu Mountains were formed by the overturned Kāi Tahu waka Tākitimu. Descendants created networks of customary food gathering sites, travelling seasonally as needed, to support permanent and semi-permanent settlements in coastal and inland regions. In later years, the coastline was a scene of early extended contact between Māori and Europeans, in this case sealers, whal ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Westland Province
The Westland Province was a province of New Zealand from 1873 until the abolition of provincial government in 1876. The capital was Hokitika. Area and history The area was part of Canterbury Province when the provinces were created in 1853. By 1868, triggered by the population growth associated with the West Coast Gold Rush, the West Coast region was separated from Canterbury Province with the formation of the County of Westland. The boundary to Canterbury was defined as the crest of the Southern Alps / Kā Tiritiri o te Moana. This county was not a true province, as it had all the administrative powers of a provincial council, but saw the legislative powers remain with Parliament in Wellington. Members of Parliament were not happy with having to spend their time on local legislation, and in 1873 the government elevated the county to full provincial status – the last of the 10 New Zealand provinces to be established. The province covered an area roughly the same as the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fiordland
Fiordland is a geographical region of New Zealand in the south-western corner of the South Island, comprising the westernmost third of Southland. Most of Fiordland is dominated by the steep sides of the snow-capped Southern Alps, deep lakes, and its steep, glacier-carved and now ocean-flooded western valleys. The name "Fiordland" comes from a variant spelling of the Scandinavian word for this type of steep valley, "fjord". The area of Fiordland is dominated by, and very roughly coterminous with, Fiordland National Park, New Zealand's largest National Park. Due to the often steep terrain and high amount of rainfall supporting dense vegetation, the interior of the Fiordland region is largely inaccessible. As a result, Fiordland was never subjected to notable logging operations, and even attempts at whaling, seal hunting, and mining were on a small scale and short-lived, partly also because of the challenging weather. Today, Fiordland contains by far the greatest extent of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Coal Mining
Coal mining is the process of extracting coal from the ground. Coal is valued for its energy content and since the 1880s has been widely used to generate electricity. Steel and cement industries use coal as a fuel for extraction of iron from iron ore and for cement production. In the United Kingdom and South Africa, a coal mine and its structures are a colliery, a coal mine is called a 'pit', and the above-ground structures are a ' pit head'. In Australia, "colliery" generally refers to an underground coal mine. Coal mining has had many developments in recent years, from the early days of men tunneling, digging and manually extracting the coal on carts to large open-cut and longwall mines. Mining at this scale requires the use of draglines, trucks, conveyors, hydraulic jacks and shearers. The coal mining industry has a long history of significant negative environmental impacts on local ecosystems, health impacts on local communities and workers, and contributes heavily ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Uranium
Uranium is a chemical element with the symbol U and atomic number 92. It is a silvery-grey metal in the actinide series of the periodic table. A uranium atom has 92 protons and 92 electrons, of which 6 are valence electrons. Uranium is weakly radioactive because all isotopes of uranium are unstable; the half-lives of its naturally occurring isotopes range between 159,200 years and 4.5 billion years. The most common isotopes in natural uranium are uranium-238 (which has 146 neutrons and accounts for over 99% of uranium on Earth) and uranium-235 (which has 143 neutrons). Uranium has the highest atomic weight of the primordially occurring elements. Its density is about 70% higher than that of lead, and slightly lower than that of gold or tungsten. It occurs naturally in low concentrations of a few parts per million in soil, rock and water, and is commercially extracted from uranium-bearing minerals such as uraninite. In nature, uranium is found as uranium-238 (99. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
List Of States With Nuclear Weapons
Eight sovereign states have publicly announced successful detonation of nuclear weapons. Five are considered to be nuclear-weapon states (NWS) under the terms of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT). In order of acquisition of nuclear weapons, these are the United States, Russia (the successor of the former Soviet Union), the United Kingdom, France, and China. Other states that possess nuclear weapons are India, Pakistan, and North Korea. Since the NPT entered into force in 1970, these three states were not parties to the Treaty and have conducted overt nuclear tests. North Korea had been a party to the NPT but withdrew in 2003. Israel is also generally understood to have nuclear weapons, but does not acknowledge it, maintaining a policy of deliberate ambiguity. Israel is estimated to possess somewhere between 75 and 400 nuclear warheads. [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Great Famine (Ireland)
The Great Famine ( ga, an Gorta Mór ), also known within Ireland as the Great Hunger or simply the Famine and outside Ireland as the Irish Potato Famine, was a period of starvation and disease in Ireland from 1845 to 1852 that constituted a historical social crisis which subsequently had a major impact on Irish society and history as a whole. With the most severely affected areas in the west and south of Ireland, where the Irish language was dominant, the period was contemporaneously known in Irish as , literally translated as "the bad life" (and loosely translated as "the hard times"). The worst year of the period was 1847, which became known as "Black '47".Éamon Ó Cuív – the impact and legacy of the Great Irish Famine During the Great Hunger, roughly 1 million people died and more than 1 million Irish diaspora, fled the country, causing the country's population to fall by 20–25% (in some towns falling as much as 67%) between 1841 and 1871.Carolan, MichaelÉireann's ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Irish Catholics
Irish Catholics are an ethnoreligious group native to Ireland whose members are both Catholic and Irish. They have a large diaspora, which includes over 36 million American citizens and over 14 million British citizens (a quarter of the British population). Overview and history Divisions between Irish Roman Catholics and Irish Protestants played a major role in the history of Ireland from the 16th century to the 20th century, especially during the Home Rule Crisis and the Troubles. While religion broadly marks the delineation of these divisions, the contentions were primarily political and they were also related to access to power. For example, while the majority of Irish Catholics had an identity which was independent from Britain's identity and were excluded from power because they were Catholic, a number of the instigators of rebellions against British rule were actually Protestant Irish nationalists, although most Irish Protestants opposed separatism. In the Irish Rebe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gold
Gold is a chemical element with the symbol Au (from la, aurum) and atomic number 79. This makes it one of the higher atomic number elements that occur naturally. It is a bright, slightly orange-yellow, dense, soft, malleable, and ductile metal in a pure form. Chemically, gold is a transition metal and a group 11 element. It is one of the least reactive chemical elements and is solid under standard conditions. Gold often occurs in free elemental ( native state), as nuggets or grains, in rocks, veins, and alluvial deposits. It occurs in a solid solution series with the native element silver (as electrum), naturally alloyed with other metals like copper and palladium, and mineral inclusions such as within pyrite. Less commonly, it occurs in minerals as gold compounds, often with tellurium ( gold tellurides). Gold is resistant to most acids, though it does dissolve in aqua regia (a mixture of nitric acid and hydrochloric acid), forming a soluble tetrachloroaurate an ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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