Mount Taranaki And Egmont National Park

Mount Taranaki, also known as Mount Egmont, is a volcanic cone on the west coast of New Zealand’s North Island that is said to be one of the most symmetrical in the world (another candidate is Mayon Volcano). The volcano was formed 120,000 years ago and last erupted in 1775, but it is not finished yet. Taranaki is only dormant, waiting, and biding its time, according to volcanologists.

Because of the difference in vegetation between inside and outside the park, the volcano is located in the center of the nearly circular Egmont National Park, whose boundary appears as a dark green circle in satellite and other high-altitude images. The dark shade represents native forest, and the light green areas are pasture land that extends all the way up to the park’s circular boundary. The vast majority of New Zealand’s lowland forests have been cleared for agriculture, leaving only small fragmented pockets of native forest densely forested with old growth trees. The Egmont National Park circle is approximately 19 kilometers in diameter.

Photo credit: Stuart Rankin/Flickr

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