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The Cook Islands have grown to four times the area of Austria. However, the South Pacific archipelago, which enjoys a unique international legal status in free association with New Zealand, has not created new islands or even annexed its neighbors. Rather, the United Nations recognized the Cook Islands’ claim to the seabed of the Manihiki Plateau and thereby granted the government in Avarua the rights to an area of 350,000 square kilometers of seabed.
