Tongariro

Tongariro is an active stratovolcano on New Zealand's North Island and the namesake of Tongariro National Park, the fourth national park established anywhere in the world and the first in New Zealand. In Māori tradition, Tongariro is one of several mountains — along with Ngāuruhoe, Taranaki, and Pīhanga — said to have once stood together in the centre of the island until they fought over the affections of the lone female mountain, Pīhanga. Taranaki lost the battle and fled to the west coast, gouging out the Whanganui River as he went, while Tongariro remained beside Pīhanga, and the smoke that still rises from Tongariro's vents is said to be a sign of his ongoing passion.

In 1887, the paramount chief of the local Ngāti Tūwharetoa people, Horonuku Te Heuheu Tūkino IV, gifted the peaks of Tongariro, Ngāuruhoe, and Ruapehu to the Crown — not as an act of dispossession, but specifically to prevent the sacred summits, which held deep spiritual significance (tapu) as the resting places of ancestors and a connection between the people and their gods, from being subdivided and sold to settlers. The gift formed the core of the new national park, and in 1993 Tongariro became the first property in the world to be inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List under the revised criteria recognising cultural landscapes, in recognition of the spiritual and cultural associations between the Ngāti Tūwharetoa people and the mountains.