What country (including its territories) is home to more species of penguins than any other?

New Zealand is the penguin capital of the world. Of the 19 species of living penguins, nine breed in New Zealand or its territories, including the Ross Sea sector of Antarctica, and another six are visitors. New Zealand is home to the greatest diversity of penguins, and has more fossil species than any other region. The first and the oldest fossil penguins were found in New Zealand.

Penguins belong to an exclusive family of birds called Spheniscidae. While many groups of waterbirds include one or two flightless species, penguins are the only group in which all members are flightless. This universal loss of flight suggests that, whatever evolutionary event drove the ancestors of penguins to give up flying, the transition to swimming and diving has been enormously successful.