New Zealand: Maori wants to rename the country ‘Aotearoa’

New Zealand: Maori wants to rename the country ‘Aotearoa’

The Maori Party has launched a petition to change New Zealand’s official name to Aotearoa. It also requests the restoration of the original names of the various geographical places of the country.


This is what sparks debates in the country. On Tuesday, September 14, the Maori Party requested, through a petition, that New Zealand’s official name be changed to “Aotearoa,” “Land of the Long White Cloud” in the Maori language. This same petition calls for “Restore the Maori names of all cities and all place names” over the next five years.

A little spoken language

This request to Parliament is aimed more broadly at restoring Maori “the place it deserves as the first official language in this country”. The party attributes the decline in the use of language, particularly within society, to the policies of successive Kiwi governments, particularly in Imposing a colonial program on the education system in the early twentieth century.

It is totally unacceptable that 20% of the Māori population and 3% of the Aotearoa population can speak Māori

Maori Party Petition

I entered into the customs

For several years now, New Zealanders, including government officials, political leaders, and businesses, have used both the names “Aotearoa” and New Zealand, without this change being formalized yet.

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