WELLINGTON, June 22 (Xinhua) -- New Zealand saw 30,500 visitors from China in May, up 3,000 year on year, the country's statistics department Stats NZ said on Friday.

China was the second largest source of visitors to New Zealand for the month, behind Australia and followed by the United States, India and Britain, according to Stats NZ.

Overall, 222,100 visitors arrived in May, up 12,900 on May 2017, it said.

Generally, Britain has been one of New Zealand's largest source countries for tourists and other visitors. It remained well ahead of India on an annual basis before, but was overtaken for the first time in May 2018.

"The percentage increase of visitors from India (up 20.7 percent) was more than twice that from the UK (up 9.5 percent) in the May 2018 year," population insights senior manager Brooke Theyers said.

Total visitor numbers for the year ended May 2018 reached 3.8 million, up 190,400 from last year, statistics show.