Aotearoa New Zealand marks its year by the stars and by a treaty — Matariki, the Māori New Year, when the Pleiades rise before dawn in midwinter, and Waitangi Day, the anniversary of the treaty signed between the British Crown and Māori chiefs in 1840.
Photo: Kristina D.C. Hoeppner, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
The two festivals in this atlas are both public holidays, and both are, in different ways, about where the country came from. Matariki follows the Māori lunar calendar: its date moves every year, and since 2022 the holiday has been set on a Friday in June or July agreed by the Matariki Advisory Committee. Waitangi Day, on 6 February, commemorates the Treaty of Waitangi of 1840, regarded by many as the country’s founding document.
Neither is a day of mass parades. Matariki is a time for remembering the dead, sharing food and looking ahead to the new year, and Waitangi Day is marked by ceremonies, speeches and debate at the Treaty Grounds in the Bay of Islands and by open days at marae across the country.
Te Rā o Waitangi
New Zealand’s national day marks the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi on 6 February 1840 between the British Crown and Māori chiefs — commemorated with a dawn service, speeches, kapa haka and waka on the harbour at the Treaty Grounds, and at times with protest and debate.
February 6, 2027Calculated
When the star cluster Matariki — the Pleiades — reappears in the pre-dawn sky of midwinter, Māori mark the beginning of a new year by remembering the dead, feeding the stars and looking ahead. Since 2022 it has been a public holiday in New Zealand.
June 25, 2027Officially announced