While Facebook’s growth in North America, Europe, and South America is well known, its growth down under has gone less noticed. In Australia, 6.5 million people, or 30% of the national population, are active on Facebook every month.

Now, New Zealand has crossed a major milestone: the number of active Facebook users in the country has crossed one million, or nearly 25% of the population. Facebook has grown over 150% in New Zealand over the last year, and the current monthly growth rate is over 31%, according to the Facebook Global Monitor.

New Zealand has openly embraced Facebook, and the social site is currently far more popular than any of its competitors in the country. Kiwis have even used Facebook for some unorthodox purposes — early this year authorities used the site to nab a criminal after he posted security camera videos of the thief on Facebook. Facebook has also been expanding its foothold in the region with this year’s opening of regional offices in Sydney, Australia.

Growth is likely to continue at this rate for at least a few more months. As more application developers create apps targeted toward users in the region, we should see even more engagement on the Platform as well.