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Restoring and correcting original Māori place names provides visible recognition of a claimant group’s connection to the whenua (land). Place names are often included in the cultural redress part of Treaty of Waitangi claim settlements.

Proposed, approved and amended geographic feature names.

Proposed, approved, adopted, assigned, altered, amended and corrected geographic names

Information for councils and mana whenua about approving recorded (unofficial) Māori place names as official.

Assigned geographic name.

Proposed, assigned, altered and discontinued undersea feature names, an assigned Antarctic name, validated, discontinued and amended Crown Protected Area names, and new and altered geographic feature names.

Assigned and altered geographic feature and Crown protected area names, a discontinued Crown protected area name, and corrected geographic feature names.

A number of prominent New Zealand mountaineers were involved in the First World War, with mountains and other features in the South Island named after them.

Assigned Crown Protected Area name.

Discontinued and new Crown protected area names and altered and confirmed geographic names.

Named by Cook after the wife of King George III, Queen Charlotte Sound / Tōtaranui was officially dual named in 2014 through two Treaty of Waitangi settlements.

Originally named by Kupe who took it for a whale (tohoraha being the southern right whale), Cook later named this feature after a camel.

While Cook had no doubts about the nature of this feature, he didn’t know that French explorer Jean François Marie de Surville had anchored in Doubtless Bay for two weeks in 1769 before sailing for Peru.

Named by Cook for a huge haul of fish. In 2012 the original Māori place name Paepae-o-Tū was restored by the Ngāti Manuhiri Treaty of Waitangi settlement.

Find out why uncertainty about the spelling and meanings of Cape Terawhiti and Cape Koamaru persist today.

Paoa was captain of the Horouta waka and his name and exploits are featured across the east coast of Te Ika-a-Māui North Island. Cook named it after the 12-year-old crewman who first spotted land from HMB Endeavor.

Stories from Place Names of the Ancestors, A Māori Oral History Atlas.

The First World War through place names. Armistice Peak, south of Aoraki / Mount Cook.

The First World War through place names. Tyrwhitt Peak, Lake Wanaka.

The First World War through place names. Birdwood Range, Canterbury Foothills.

In 1991 Wanganui River was altered to Whanganui River, with an ‘h’, and made an official place name.