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A desert is sometimes defined as an area with a rainfall of less than 250mm a year, therefore New Zealand does not have any significant areas of true desert. Some small areas of inland Otago and Canterbury in the South Island do have this low an annual rainfall, but only just. One area is around the town of Alexandra, which has an annual rainfall of less than 400mm.

Some reasons for the misconception that New Zealand has desert is the name for one of the State highways in the central North Island being the Desert Road and there is a region known as the Rangipo desert. It has a much higher rainfall than a desert,(about four times as much) but has high winds and poor soils and is at a high altitude, so seems like a desert because plants struggle to survive. The Rangipo "desert" is on the volcanic plateau in the central North Island.

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11y ago

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