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  "path": "/2026/02/nt-smaller-than-wellington.html",
  "publishedAt": "2026-02-16T00:50:00.007Z",
  "site": "https://blog.mikeriversdale.co.nz",
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  "textContent": "In geography the Northern Territory just squeezes past the Wellington Region with approximately 1.35 million square kilometers making it the third-largest Australian federal division - about 17.5% of Australia's total land area.\n\n\n\n\nIt's a big lump of hot red land.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nPopulation though - dispersed over these lands there are only **264,411** human bodies, about 1% of Australia's total population.\n\n\n\n\nYou can do the maths to work out how much land each person could stand upon if spread out, you won't be crowded that's for sure.\n\n> .. you have more land per person than almost anywhere else on Earth!\n\nSo how does 264,411 people compare to places we all know and love:\n\n  * ​🇸🇪 Stockholm CITY: ~996,000\n  * 🏞️ Wellington Region: 543,400\n  * ⛪ Christchurch CITY: 415,300\n  * 🏜️ Northern Territory: 264,411\n  * 🌬️ Wellington CITY: 210,800\n  * **🚜**  Levin: 20,500\n  * ​🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿 Monmouth: ~11,150\n  * 🏖️ Waitārere Beach: 1,020\n\n\n\nSome silly facts an LLM decided for us:\n\n\n  1. **The Stockholm Giant:** You could fit nearly 977 Waitārere Beaches inside Stockholm city.\n  2. ​**Capital Clash:** Stockholm (the Swedish capital) is almost 5 times more populous than Wellington City (the AoNZ capital).\n  3. ​**The Waitārere Rugby Club:** Since you're a rugby fan, it’s worth noting that the entire population of Waitārere Beach could only provide enough people for about 44 full match-day squads (23 players each).\n  4. ​**Wellington’s Reach:** The Wellington Region has 2.5 times more people than the city center, showing just how many people live in those windy hills and suburbs!\n  5. ​**Monmouth Growth:** Stockholm is roughly 89 times the size of Monmouth.\n  6. ​**My Current Neighborhood:**  The Northern Territory, has about 25% more people than Wellington City.\n  7. ​**Levin vs. Beach:** It would take 20 Waitārere Beaches to fill up the town of Levin.\n  8. ​**The Million Mark:** Stockholm is tantalizingly close to a major milestone—it’s only 4,000 people away from a population of 1 million.\n  9. ​**The Global Mike Footprint:** If you gathered everyone from every place you’ve lived or listed here, you’d have 2.46 million people—about half the total population of Aotearoa New Zealand!\n  10. ​**The Christchurch Double:** Christchurch City is almost exactly double the size of Wellington City.\n  11. ​**A Tiny Slice:** Waitārere Beach represents only 0.1% of Stockholm's total population.\n  12. ​**Monmouth Multiplier:** You would need about 19 Monmouths to equal the population of Wellington City.\n  13. ​**NT Space:** While the Northern Territory has 264,411 people, it covers over 1.3 million km², making it the \"roomiest\" place on this list by far!\n  14. ​**The NZ Trio:** If you combined the Wellington Region, Christchurch, and Levin, you'd have 979,200 people—still fewer than Stockholm alone.\n  15. ​**Waitārere in the Territory:** You could fit the population of Waitārere Beach into the Northern Territory 259 times.\n  16. ​**Childhood vs. Current:** The Northern Territory is roughly 23 times more populous than my childhood home of Monmouth.\n  17. ​**Stadium Filler:** The entire populations of Monmouth and Levin combined (31,650) could fit into a mid-sized rugby stadium like Eden Park with over 18,000 seats left over.\n  18. ​**Growth Since 1967:** Since I was born, the population of the Northern Territory has grown nearly 5 times over (it was roughly 56,000 back then!).\n  19. ​**City vs. Region:** About 60% of people in the Wellington Region live outside the main Wellington City limits.\n  20. ​**The Grand Parade** : If all 2,462,581 people from these locations held hands, the line would stretch roughly 3,700km—about the distance from Darwin to Adelaide and back again!\n\n\n\n\n\n(subscribe/RSS)",
  "title": "NT, Smaller Than Wellington",
  "updatedAt": "2026-02-16T00:56:50.800Z"
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