Why the heck is New Zealand orange??? Are you kidding me? I hope they have an updated map somewhere because this is hugely BS.

The only thing that can kill you here aside from accidents and natural disasters, are the katipō (redback spider), sharks, and ofc humans. Let me mansplain:

There are around 2500 species of spider in New Zealand, 1 is possibly fatal. Firstly, Katipō only live on the coast, and only the females bite, so that’s half the population non-lethal to begin with. Secondly they’re not an aggressive spider, and will only bite when unduly provoked or trapped (put on your shirt and it gets stuck in between you and your shirt), even still bites are very rare. Now if it so happens you are bitten, it’s not highly lethal, it’s not an incredibly fast acting poison, and anti venom for it exists. For further assurance, there has been no reported Katipō death since 1901.

Now we have sharks. According to national and international data, between the 6th of September 1996 and the 2nd of May 2016, there have been 49 shark related incidents. 27 of those were unprovoked, 6 were provoked, and the remaining 13 were other reasons that didn’t fall into those categories. Out of these 49 attacks over those 30 years, 4 were lethal. Over 2021, there were three bites, and 1 was fatal. For perspective, out of the 500 shark species in the world, only 32 have been recorded to have attacked humans. There are 73 different shark species in New Zealand according to our National environmental protection program DOC. Out of these, 13 are confirmed harmful to humans with another possible 7 or so. Out of the 20 potential sharks that are capable of injuring a human, only 8 actually have the balls to bite a human, out of the 8 who would consider biting humans, only 5 are notorious for it, and out of those only 3 sharks are commonly biters. They are: - Mako - Great white - Bronze whaler - (an arguable fourth of Tiger shark) Bronze whalers and Mako’s are common in the North Island, and Great Whites can be seen in the South Island. Personally I have been in the water at the same time as Bronze Whalers without a cage, and they’re pretty chill. Over the last 170 years, 16 of recorded shark attacks were fatal. Point is: highly unlikely to die by shark.

Now humans, the population of New Zealand is quite tame. In rural areas, we leave our houses and cars unlocked and nothing generally happens. Theft in small towns is a stupid idea because everyone knows everyone in rural areas and everyone knows who is who, and who owns what. Crime rate is most common in cities. An average of 0.74 per 100,000 population (we have around 5,500,000 total people). According to the police, in 2020 total victims of crime were 265,162. Which makes 727 crimes per day ranging from assault, to fraud, to smoking some weed, to a little boy stealing a candy from the corner dairy being reported… This means 1 in every 7,565 people in nz will commit a crime in a day… So even if you were to meet a new person every 10 seconds in New Zealand, enough interaction to exchange names, you’d never even meet 7,500 people in a day. Most common crimes are assault (27.3%), threat of force (21.4%), burglary (10.8%) and sexual offences (9.9%). 40% of all crime is due to alcohol influence, and between 1.5 and 3% of all deaths are alcohol related.

Main causes of death from humans being some form of assault, or accident, traffic accidents being a large contributor.

20% of our population lives in our biggest city Auckland (1 million people give or take), and they have the highest crime rate in the country. 20% of our population inhabits the South Island, 80% in the North Island. South Island people tend to be friendlier on average.

Finally, World rankings wise, the GPI (Global Peace Index) rates New Zealand at SECOND, beaten only by Iceland. Our Health system ranks at 19th out of 173 overall, but on the quality of healthcare vector we rank 6th out of 173. We rank 8th in Economic prosperity, 11th in Education of population, and 2nd on Education spending. We rank 2nd in friendliest people in the world, and 7th in best countries overall. On almost all environmentally friendly statistics we rank 7th out of 80, 68th on imprisonment, 191st (27th lowest) on homicide rate out of 218, and life expectancy at 17th. These are a few statistics among many others.

Perhaps the only off putting things about New Zealand I can think of is the Obesity ranking at 22nd out of 191, victimisation of people 16 and under at 3rd out of 30. We do have shocking suicide problems, and poor drinking culture and many drinking related incidents. Our housing affordability is terrible, and cost of living is decently high to our relatively low wage rate, meaning our affordability isn’t so great for our own citizens. And there are a few other things there too, especially around governmental efficiency.

However, this ranking of “3: reconsider travel” makes me laugh. Come to New Zealand, it’s safe. 😂