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Comment by knz | Hacker News Reader

I'm a kiwi who has lived in North America for over a decade. It's astounding to me how many people I've met have no idea where New Zealand is or believe it is near Scandinavia or Iceland - I'm not sure that issue is due to NZ missing from a map occasionally though! Likewise with the number of people who believe New Zealand is really part of Australia.

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I'm a kiwi, who lived in the US from the age of 8 to 13 (1998 - 2003).

I remember getting into a massive argument with an Elementary school teacher who tried to tell me I was wrong when I told her that my country was not in fact part of the country of Australia (not just continent, but she was adamant it was part of the Australian country).

Bad news mate, much like we claim anyone famous from NZ, we also claim the entire land mass:

Australian constitution, premable [corrected]:

"The States shall mean such of the colonies of New South Wales, New Zealand, Queensland, Tasmania, Victoria, Western Australia, and South Australia, including the northern territory of South Australia [...] and each of such parts of the Commonwealth shall be called a State."

Apparently those words mean NZ is "pre-approved" to join the Commonwealth of Australia and she can unilaterally join at a time of her choosing [1]. If true, it would make for an interesting scenario if acted upon.

[1] http://www.diskiller.net/nzstatehood/

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The words are actually in section 6 (definitions) of the preamble, not section 6 in the main body of the constitution.

Hah, yeah I wasn't really suggesting it. Just one of those quirks. I am no lawyer but I suspect we couldn't write up some paperwork to claim a country without them agreeing to it anyway.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Section_6_of_the_Constitution_...

Going through a world map game a few times helped this American to make fewer such mistakes: https://online.seterra.com/en/vgp/3069 https://lizardpoint.com/geography/world-countries-quiz.php

Well, logically, it would be in the North Sea off Old Zeeland.

But it is a part of Australia, at least as far as the Australian Constitution is concerned -- check out section 6:

https://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/Senate/Powers_practi...

Some seriously convoluted run on sentences in there.

Its readily taught in the US that NZ is apart of the Australian continent and not Zealandia. We are taught 7 continents thus NZ is closest to Australia so we go with that, no need for specifics...

Eh, Zealandia doesn't make most lists of continents. It's more traditional to say that New Zealand is not part of a continent.

We are part of of Australasia, but not Australia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australasia

Nothing to see there anyway... full of sheep, hobbits and the odd moose some say.

Sadly I don't think many got the moose reference [1][2]. :(

[1] https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/103196185/new-zealands-moos... [2] https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/104071821/there-are-signs-m...

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