New Zealand Has the Shortest Human History of Any Country in the World

I wrote this in 2016 or 2017 during the two years I lived in New Zealand. Some details — prices, hours, what’s open — may have changed, but the experience and my love for this place haven’t.

New Zealand is a new country in the grand scheme of things. According to Te Ara, the online encyclopedia of New Zealand, “New Zealand has a shorter human history than any other country. The precise date of settlement is a matter of debate, but current understanding is that the first arrivals came from East Polynesia in the 13th century. It was not until 1642 that Europeans became aware the country existed.”

That’s not a contradiction — the 13th century is only about 700 to 800 years ago, not 1,000. But even the more generous estimate of first Māori settlement around 1,000 years ago is brief compared to 13,000 years for the Americas, and vastly shorter than the human histories of Africa, Asia, and Europe. New Zealand is, by any measure, the last large landmass on earth to be settled by people.

The oldest surviving European building in New Zealand is Kemp House in Kerikeri, completed in 1822. It was built by Māori sawyers and missionary carpenters and predates the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi by almost 20 years — which tells you something about how compressed this country’s entire European history is. The Treaty itself was only signed in 1840. That’s not ancient history. That’s closer to yesterday.

The end result of all of this is that there aren’t a lot of old buildings here and you don’t get that feeling of walking through centuries of human history the way you do in Europe, the Middle East, or Asia. Most cities have a historic downtown, but historic usually means buildings that are less than 100 years old. A building from the 1920s gets a heritage listing. In most of the world that building would be unremarkable.

What’s interesting is that this youth gives New Zealand a particular kind of energy. The culture, the identity, the relationship between Māori and Pākehā — all of it is still being actively shaped and debated in a way that feels immediate rather than settled. After two years of living here, I find that more energizing than unsettling. There’s something rare about being in a place where the story isn’t finished yet.