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"New Zealand is not a small country but a large village." – Peter Jackson
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Look at the maps on display. Each one was made by people who knew what they were doing: a global furniture company, a national museum, the United Nations, a best-selling board game, a published geography textbook. Every one of them is missing the same country: New Zealand. There is even a large online collection of world maps that leave New Zealand off, with hundreds of examples sent in from around the world.
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You will not type on this page. Open a Google Doc, title it Does New Zealand exist?, and keep all your notes and answers there.
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New Zealand obviously exists. Around five million people live there. It is larger than the United Kingdom, and its nearest neighbour, Australia, is a four-hour flight away.
And yet the omissions are real and well documented. There is even a world map at the United Nations in Geneva, not far from here, that leaves New Zealand off.
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Resources to explore (your teacher can display these, or you can open them yourself):
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In your Google Doc: in one sentence, how is it possible that so many careful, professional maps leave it out?
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This is not a one-off mistake. It keeps happening, on serious maps, made by organisations that really should know better.