nature & planetWikivoyage
New Zealand's largest national park is a wall of fiords carved by ancient glaciers
Fiordland National Park covers about 12,600 square kilometres in the south-west corner of New Zealand's South Island, making it the country's largest national park. Its fiords are glacier-carved valleys that were flooded by the sea after the ice retreated, leaving steep rock walls that plunge into deep water. Together with the neighbouring Mount Aspiring National Park, it forms a UNESCO World Heritage site. Its dramatic scenery was used as a film location for The Lord of the Rings.
Fiords form when glaciers flow down existing river valleys and gouge them deeper and wider, creating U-shaped profiles with steep sides. When the ice melts and sea levels rise, the sea floods these valleys, producing long, narrow inlets with cliffs rising directly from the water.
Fiordland shows how glaciers sculpt coastlines, and the park's protected wilderness is one of the best places in the world to see that process in its finished form. Its World Heritage status recognises both its landscape and its ecological value.
Milford Sound, the most famous fiord in the park, is often described as the eighth wonder of the world, a phrase popularised by Rudyard Kipling.
background
Fiordland National Park is a national park in the south-west corner of South Island of New Zealand. It is the largest of the 13 national parks in New Zealand, with an area of 12,607 km2 (4,868 sq mi). The park occupies almost half of the area of Te Wāhipounamu, a UNESCO World Heritage Site established in 1990, and is administered by the Department of Conservation (DOC). The southern ranges of the Southern Alps cover most of Fiordland National Park, combined with the deep glacier-carved valleys.
The park is a refuge for many threatened native animals, ranging from dolphins and bats to reptiles, insects, and endangered species of birds endemic to New Zealand, such as the takahē, mōhua, kākāpō, and southern brown kiwi.
From Wikipedia: Fiordland National Park (CC BY-SA 4.0) ↗ · text CC BY-SA 4.0see
key facts
- Country
- New Zealand
- Located in
- Southland Region
- Area
- 12,500 km²
- Elevation
- 1,063 m
- Founded
- 1952
Facts: Wikidata (CC0)
Adapted from Wikivoyage, the free travel guide · CC BY-SA 4.0
Illustrative photo · Krzysztof Golik, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
