An update to the New Zealand Government website includes a pun referencing the country's frequent absence from world maps.

Living on the edge of the Earth can mean dropping off the map.

Acknowledging the world-wide tendency to omit New Zealand's existence, the New Zealand Government website has been updated with a cheeky visual pun.

The HTTP 404 "page not found" address on the site features a map of the world, without New Zealand.

Updated on December 9 2016, the error page says: "We're sorry, something's missing..."

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"You're seeing this page because we can't find the page you're looking for, or because there's a problem with our site."

Glad to see humour in IT. Very witty 404 page for NZ Govt. https://t.co/3M8hEirFIp #404 #nzgovernment #NewZealand — Paul Hellyer (@tinshed) December 22, 2016

The joke has drawn a chuckle from many. Picked up by the "World Maps Without New Zealand" Tumblr blog, it has since reported on by British tabloid Daily Mail.

HTTP 404 sites are reached by web browsers when an address is entered which cannot be reached by the server, or doesn't exist.