Kanak people
The earliest history of Europeans arriving on these islands is when Captain Cook of the United Kingdom landed in these islands in 1775 at a time when there were reportedly 70,000 Kanaks living in the archipelago. Cook gave the name "New Caledonia" to these islands, after Caledonia, his Scottish highlands.
Scottish people
The majority of Scottish immigrants settled in the South Island. All over New Zealand, the Scots developed different means to bridge the old homeland and the new. Many Caledonian societies were formed, well over 100 by the early twentieth century, who helped maintain Scottish culture and traditions. From the 1860s, these societies organised annual Caledonian Games throughout New Zealand. The Games were sports meets that brought together Scottish settlers and the wider New Zealand public. In so doing, the Games gave Scots a path to cultural integration as Scottish New Zealanders. In the 1961 census there were 47,078 people living in New Zealand who were born in Scotland; in the 2013 census there were 25,953 in this category.