New Zealand Quaternary strata, including marine sediments, loess, volcanic and glacial deposits, offer detailed records of Quaternary environmental change from a geographically significant location. Time-stratigraphic subdivision of New Zealand Quaternary strata, based on marine biostratigraphy and climatostratigraphy, has resulted in a series of locally defined stages and substages. The Plio/Pleistocene boundary as defined at Vrica in Italy, and dated at ca. 1.63 Ma, lies near the top of the Nukumaruan Stage in New Zealand. The first faunal evidence of cooling in New Zealand Plio/Pleistocene sequences occurs much earlier, at the base of the Nukumaruan Stage ca. 2.4 Ma, with the appearance in central New Zealand of the subantarctic taxa Chlamys delicatula and Jacquinotia edwardsii. Although glacial deposits of the South Island have long been central to New Zealand Quaternary stratigraphy, they are poorly dated and lack continuity. More complete records of Quaternary events are found within uplifted marine strata and associated terrestrial deposits of the North Island, such as in Wanganui Basin. The use of widespread rhyolite tephra for precise correlation and dating in North Island offers much for improved land-sea correlations. Direct correlation of on-land sequences, using tephra, with Oxygen Isotope Stages of deep sea cores may negate the need for further local time-stratigraphic subdivision in the New Zealand Quaternary. However, there will still be scope for regional comparisons highlighting climatic changes not apparent in deep sea cores.