Māori words for nature: land, sea, sky, forest

The Māori words for nature people look up most are land, mountain and water: the Māori word for land is whenua, the word for mountain is maunga, and the word for water is wai. The sea is moana, a river is awa, the forest is ngahere, the sky is rangi and the earth, as soil, is oneone. Nature itself, the natural world, is taiao. Below are the words by theme, with Te Aka Māori Dictionary’s meanings, the story of the sky and the earth that sits behind many of them, and sentences to use them in.

Updated 20 October 2026 · 7 min read

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Land: whenua, papa and Papatūānuku

Why whenua also means placenta

Te Aka gives five senses for whenua: land, country, ground, territory, and placenta or afterbirth. Te Ara, the Encyclopedia of New Zealand, explains the link in Te Ahukaramū Charles Royal’s account of Papatūānuku: ‘All life is seen as being born from the womb of Papatūānuku, under the sea. The lands that appear above water are placentas from her womb.’ Traditionally, it says, the whenua and the pito ‘umbilical cord’ of a newborn are buried in a significant place, which ‘reinforces the relationship between the newborn child and the land of their birth.’

The same word is in tangata whenua, literally ‘people of the land’: in Te Ara’s words, ‘those who have authority in a particular place’, through their own births there and their ancestors’.

Mountains and hills: maunga, puke

A mountain is the first thing many people name when they introduce themselves in Māori: Ko Taranaki te maunga. ‘Taranaki is the mountain.’ Te Ara notes that many tribes identify themselves ‘in terms of their mountains, waterways and important ancestors’. How to put your own mountain and river into an introduction is in how to introduce yourself with a pepeha.

Water: wai, awa, roto, moana

Both wairere and tāheke are given by Te Aka for a waterfall; tāheke is also a rapid. Wai, roto, awa and moana are inside a great many place names, and what they do there is in Māori place names and what they mean. The Whanganui saying I am the river and the river is me is explained in whakataukī.

Forest and trees: ngahere, rākau

Ngahere or ngāhere? Te Aka spells the word for forest ngahere, with a short first a; it has no entry spelt ngāhere, and a search for that spelling returns ngahere. The course spells it the same way.

Te Aka notes that rākau is not normally used in front of the name of a tree, so the kauri is te kauri, not ‘te rākau kauri’. It describes the kauri as the largest forest tree, found only in the northern North Island, and the tōtara as a large forest tree found throughout the country and popular timber for carving. The largest known living kauri, in Waipoua Forest in Northland, is called Tāne Mahuta, ‘Lord of the Forest’, according to the Department of Conservation; Tāne-mahuta is, in Te Aka, the atua of the forests and birds. The birds that live in the ngahere have their own page: Māori names for native birds and animals, and the trees behind two of the colour words are in Māori colours.

Sky and weather: rangi, kapua, ua, hau

Rangi does several jobs at once: the sky, the day, and the weather. That is why the everyday way to ask about the weather uses it:

Kei te marks something happening now; how it works is in Māori sentence structure.

The sun, the moon and the stars: rā, marama, whetū

Two of these are also words for time. Rā is the sun and a day, and marama is the moon and a month. Watch the macron: mārama, with a long first vowel, is a different word, meaning clear, light or easy to understand. The Māori lunar calendar, which names each night of the moon, is in the maramataka, and the star cluster that marks the Māori new year is in Matariki: the stars, words and phrases.

Earth, soil, rock and sand: oneone, kōhatu, one

For earth, choose by meaning: oneone is the soil in a garden, whenua is land and country, and the Earth as the earth mother is Papatūānuku.

Ranginui and Papatūānuku: the sky and the earth

Many of these words have a story behind them. In the Māori creation tradition, of which Te Ara says there are numerous versions, Ranginui, the sky father, and Papatūānuku, the earth mother, lay together in darkness, and their children lived in the dark between them. In the account Te Ara gives from Wiremu Maihi Te Rangikāheke of Te Arawa, the children decided to separate them, and Tāne lay on his back and pushed his parents apart with his arms and legs. Light came into the world between earth and sky.

Those children became the atua of the parts of the natural world. Te Ara names them:

In this tradition, Te Ara says, ‘all things of this world are descendants of the children of Ranginui and Papatūānuku, and all life is interconnected.’ So the forest is Tāne’s, the sea Tangaroa’s, and a storm is the work of Tāwhirimātea.

Where the accounts differ: in Te Rangikāheke’s account it is Tāne who separates his parents. Te Aka Māori Dictionary records that in some versions it was Paia-nui-a-Rangi. Te Ara notes that there are numerous versions of the tradition, so neither is the only right one.

Many traditional designs draw on the natural world too; they are explained in Māori symbols and their meanings.

Kaitiakitanga: looking after the natural world

Kaitiakitanga is, in Te Aka, ‘guardianship, stewardship, trusteeship’. Te Ara calls it ‘a way of managing the environment, based on the traditional Māori world view’, and gives an example of who a kaitiaki ‘guardian’ can be: ‘a hapū (sub-tribe) may be the kaitiaki for a lake or a forest.’ Why the English word stewardship does not quite cover it is in Māori words with no English equivalent.

Sentences for the classroom

A walk outside, or a picture of a landscape, is enough for a lesson. There is no word for is; he means a, and kei hea asks where.

A class can sort pictures into land, water and sky, or go outside and name what they can see. More ideas are in Māori for kids and te reo for teachers, and Verbavia’s te reo Māori course teaches most of the words in these tables, free on the web.

Sources

1. Te Aka Māori Dictionary: whenua — land; country, nation; ground; territory; placenta, afterbirth.
2. Te Aka Māori Dictionary: papa — board, floor … Earth … anything broad, flat and hard.
3. Te Aka Māori Dictionary: Papatūānuku — Earth, Earth mother and wife of Rangi-nui.
4. Te Aka Māori Dictionary: Rangi-nui — atua of the sky and husband of Papa-tū-ā-nuku.
5. Te Aka Māori Dictionary: taiao — world, Earth, natural world, environment, nature.
6. Te Aka Māori Dictionary: maunga — mountain, mount, peak; pae maunga — mountain range.
7. Te Aka Māori Dictionary: puke, pukepuke and hiwi.
8. Te Aka Māori Dictionary: wai — water, liquid, juice; stream, creek, river; tears.
9. Te Aka Māori Dictionary: awa — river, stream, creek, canal, gully, gorge.
10. Te Aka Māori Dictionary: roto — lake.
11. Te Aka Māori Dictionary: moana — sea, ocean, large lake.
12. Te Aka Māori Dictionary: Te Moana-nui-a-Kiwa — Pacific Ocean.
13. Te Aka Māori Dictionary: tai — the sea, coast; tide.
14. Te Aka Māori Dictionary: au — current; whirlpool, rapid.
15. Te Aka Māori Dictionary: puna, waipuna, repo and kōawa.
16. Te Aka Māori Dictionary: wairere — stream of water, waterfall.
17. Te Aka Māori Dictionary: tāheke — waterfall, rapid.
18. Te Aka Māori Dictionary: ngahere — bush, forest.
19. Te Aka Māori Dictionary: rākau — tree … not normally used before the names of trees or plants.
20. Te Aka Māori Dictionary: kauri and tōtara.
21. Te Aka Māori Dictionary: Tāne-mahuta — atua of the forests and birds.
22. Te Aka Māori Dictionary: rangi — day, sky; weather; heavens.
23. Te Aka Māori Dictionary: kapua, ua, hau, marangai, hukarere, uira, whatitiri, āniwaniwa and huarere.
24. Te Aka Māori Dictionary: rā — sun; day.
25. Te Aka Māori Dictionary: marama — moon; month; and mārama — clear, light.
26. Te Aka Māori Dictionary: whetū — star.
27. Te Aka Māori Dictionary: oneone, one, onepū, kōhatu and toka.
28. Te Aka Māori Dictionary: whiti — to shine (of the sun); pupuhi — to blow.
29. Te Aka Māori Dictionary: Paia-nui-a-Rangi — in some versions, separated Rangi-nui and Papa-tū-ā-nuku.
30. Te Aka Māori Dictionary: kaitiakitanga — guardianship, stewardship, trusteeship.
31. Te Ara: Te Ahukaramū Charles Royal, ‘Papatūānuku – the land’, Papatūānuku – the earth mother: numerous versions; the world of light, Te Ao Mārama; all life interconnected.
32. Te Ara: Te Ahukaramū Charles Royal, ‘Papatūānuku – the land’, Whenua – the placenta.
33. Te Ara: Te Ahukaramū Charles Royal, ‘Papatūānuku – the land’, Tūrangawaewae – a place to stand.
34. Te Ara: Rāwiri Taonui, ‘Ranginui – the sky’, Ranginui – the sky father.
35. Te Ara: Te Ahukaramū Charles Royal, ‘Kaitiakitanga – guardianship and conservation’, Understanding kaitiakitanga.
36. Department of Conservation: Tāne Mahuta Walk, Waipoua Forest — New Zealand’s largest known living kauri tree.