Where is Zealand named after New Zealand

European discoverers of new lands often gave them names reminiscent of their native land, and in order not to get confused, they added the word "new" to them. So on the map appeared New Jersey and New York, New Caledonia and New South Wales, and, of course, New Zealand. But almost nobody remembers where the very “old” Zealand is located, by whose name the new islands were named.

New Zealand was discovered by Europeans relatively recently - only in the middle of the XVII century. But since the local Polynesian population convincingly made it clear that Europeans were not welcome here, these islands were left alone for a long time, and the inhabitants of Europe hardly remembered them. But, as expected in the case of the discovery of new lands, the islands were mapped, which means they needed to come up with a name.

Often the names of the new islands were assigned according to some distinctive features of the territory itself or in tune with what the locals called them. But in the case of New Zealand, the Abel Tasman’s expedition apparently did not notice any distinctive features of the new land, and communication with local tribes did not work out from the very beginning. For this reason, the name was chosen by analogy with the existing European region. The place that gave the name of New Zealand was the province of Zealand, which is located in the Netherlands.

Abel Tasman, as well as cartographers describing the new territories, were from the Netherlands, and although New Zealand landscapes are far from the lowlands of their native European region, it was decided to name them after Zeeland. By the way, the name of this province is translated as "sea country". And if you look at the map, it becomes clear why this place is so called. The entire territory of the province consists of islands, bays and lowland land, so it seems that it is not land, but rather the sea, which has slightly lost its position and gave people a little land on which to build houses and grow tulips.

Europeans avoided the newly described islands for a long time, and only in the second half of the 18th century the ships of European travelers again moored to New Zealand.