Westland Tai Poutini National Park is a national park located on the western coast of New Zealand's South Island. Established in 1960 as Westland National Park to commemorate the centenary of the European settlement of Westland District, it covers 1,320 square kilometres of largely mountainous terrain and forest. The park borders the Aoraki / Mount Cook National Park along the Main Divide of the Southern Alps, and includes many of the West Coast's glaciers, most notably including the Fox / Te Moeka o Tuawe and Franz Josef / Kā Roimata o Hine Hukatere glaciers.

The South Island, also named Te Waipounamu in Māori, is the larger of the two major islands of New Zealand in surface area, the other being the smaller but more populous North Island. It is bordered to the north by Cook Strait, to the west by the Tasman Sea, and to the south and east by the Pacific Ocean. The South Island covers 150,437 square kilometres (58,084 sq mi), making it the world's 12th-largest island, constituting 56% of New Zealand's land area. At low altitude, it has an oceanic climate.