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Dunedin
Urban Area Population 136,600
Extent Mosgiel to Port Chalmers
Territorial
Authority		 Name Dunedin City
Population 142,100
Land area 3314.8km²
Extent urban area, and out as
far as Middlemarch,
Waikouaiti and the
Taieri River
Regional
Council		 Name Otago

Dunedin is the second-largest city in the South Island of New Zealand, located in coastal Otago. It is New Zealand's fifth largest city after Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch and Hamilton. It is known in Māori as Ōtepoti, although this name is seldom if ever used. The city stands on the hills and valleys surrounding the head of Otago Harbour. The harbour and hills are the remnants of an extinct volcano. Dunedin is the home of the University of Otago.

History

Modern archaeology favours a date round 1100 AD for the first human (Māori) occupation of New Zealand with population concentrated along the south east coast. A camp site at Kaikai's Beach, near Otago Heads, has been dated about that time. There are numerous Archaic (moa hunter) sites in what is now Dunedin, several of them large and permanently occupied, particularly in the 14th century. Population contracted but expanded again with the evolution of the Classic culture which saw the building of several pa, fortified settlements, notably Pukekura at (Taiaroa Head), about 1650. There was a settlement in what is now central Dunedin (Ōtepoti) occupied as late as about 1785 but abandoned by 1826.

Maori tradition tells first of people called Te Rapuwai living in the area, then Kahui Tipua, semi-legendary but considered to be historical. The next arrivals were Waitaha followed by Kati Mamoe late in the sixteenth century and then Kai Tahu ('Ngai Tahu' in modern standard Māori) who arrived in the mid 17th century. These migration waves have often been represented as 'invasions' in European accounts but modern scholarship has cast doubt on that. They were probably migrations like those of the European which incidentally resulted in bloodshed.

The sealer John Boultbee recorded in the 1820s that the 'Kaika Otargo' (settlements around and near Otago Harbour) were the oldest and largest in the south.

Captain James Cook stood off what is now the coast of Dunedin between February 25 and March 5 1770, naming Cape Saunders on the Otago Peninsula and Saddle Hill. He reported penguins and seals in the vicinity, which led sealers to visit from the beginning of the 19th century. The early years of sealing saw a feud between sealers and local Maori, from 1810-1823, sparked by an incident on Otago Harbour, but William Tucker became the first European to settle in the area in 1815. Permanent European occupation dates from 1831 when the Weller brothers founded their whaling station at Otago, modern Otakou on the Otago Harbour. Epidemics reduced the Maori population. By the late 1830s the harbour was an international whaling port. Johnny Jones established a farming settlement and a mission station, the South Island's first, at Waikouaiti in 1840.

The Lay Association of the Free Church of Scotland founded Dunedin at the head of Otago Harbour in 1848 as the principal town of its Scottish settlement. The name comes from Dùn Èideann, the Scottish Gaelic name for Edinburgh, the Scottish capital. Charles Kettle the city's surveyor, instructed to emulate the characteristics of Edinburgh, produced a striking, 'Romantic' design. The result was both grand and quirky streets as the builders struggled and sometimes failed to construct his bold vision across the challenging landscape. Captain William Cargill, a veteran of the war against Napoleon, was the secular leader. The Reverend Thomas Burns, a nephew of the poet Robbie Burns, was the spiritual guide.

In 1852 Dunedin became the capital of the Otago Province, the whole of New Zealand from the Waitaki south. In 1861 the discovery of gold at Gabriel's Gully, to the southwest, led to a rapid influx of population and saw Dunedin become New Zealand's first city by growth of population in 1865. The new arrivals included many Irish, but also Italians, French, Germans, Jews and Chinese.

Dunedin and the region industrialised and consolidated, and the South Island trunk railway connected the city with both Invercargill and Christchurch in 1879. The University of Otago, the oldest university in New Zealand, was founded in Dunedin in 1869. Otago Girls High School (1871) is said to be the oldest state secondary school for girls in the Southern Hemisphere. Between 1881 and 1957, Dunedin was home to the Dunedin cable trams, being both one of the first and last such systems operated anywhere in the world. Early in the 1880s the inauguration of the frozen meat industry, with the first shipment leaving from Port Chalmers, saw the beginning of a later great national industry.

After ten years of gold rushes the economy slowed but Julius Vogel's immigration and development scheme brought thousands more especially to Dunedin and Otago before recession set in again in the 1880s. In these first times of prosperity many institutions and businesses were established, New Zealand's first daily newspaper, art school, medical school and public art gallery Dunedin Public Art Gallery among them. There was also a remarkable architectural flowering producing many substantial and ornamental buildings. R.A. Lawson's First Church of Otago and Knox Church are notable examples, as are buildings by Maxwell Bury and F.W. Petre. The other visual arts also flourished under the leadership of W.M. Hodgkins. The city's landscape and burgeoning townscape were vividly portrayed by George O'Brien 1821-1888. From the mid 1890s the economy revived. Institutions such as the Otago Settlers Museum and the Hocken Collections - first of their types in New Zealand - were founded. More notable buildings such as the Railway Station and Olveston were erected. New energy in the visual arts culminated in the career of Frances Hodgkins.

By 1900 Dunedin was no longer the country's biggest city. Influence and activity moved north to the other centres ("the drift north"), a trend which continued for much of the following century. Despite this, the university continued to expand, and a student quarter became established. In this time too people started to notice Dunedin's mellowing, the ageing of its grand old buildings, with writers like E.H. McCormick pointing out its atmospheric charm. In the 1930s and early 40s a new generation of artists such as M.T. (Toss) Woollaston, Doris Lusk, Anne Hamblett, Colin McCahon and Patrick Hayman once again represented the best of the country's talent. The Second World War saw the dispersal of these painters, but not before McCahon had met a very youthful poet, James K. Baxter, in a central city studio.

Modern Dunedin

After World War II prosperity and population growth revived, although Dunedin trailed as the fourth 'main centre'. A generation reacting against Victorianism started demolishing its buildings, and many were lost, notably the Stock Exchange in 1969. Although the university continued to expand, the city's population growth slowed and then contracted, notably from 1976-81. This was, however, a culturally vibrant time with the university's new privately endowed arts fellowships, bringing such luminaries as James K Baxter, Ralph Hotere, Janet Frame, and Hone Tuwhare to the city.

During the 1980s, the city's popular music scene also blossomed, with many acts (such as The Chills, The Clean, The Verlaines, and Straitjacket Fits) gaining national and international recognition. The term "The Dunedin Sound" was coined to describe the 1960s-influenced guitar-led music which came out of the city at this time.

By 1990, population decline had steadied and Dunedin had re-invented itself as a 'heritage city' with its main streets refurbished in Victorian style and R.A. Lawson's Municipal Chambers in the Octagon handsomely restored. It was also recognised as a centre of excellence in tertiary education and research. The university's growth accelerated. North Dunedin became New Zealand's largest and most exuberant residential campus. The city has continued to refurbish itself, embarking on major developments and redevelopments of the art gallery, railway station, and Otago Settlers Museum.

Today, Dunedin has flourishing niche industries including engineering, software engineering, bio-technology and fashion. Port Chalmers on Otago Harbour provides Dunedin with deep-water port facilities. The port is served by the Port Chalmers Branch, a branch line railway that diverges from the Main South Line that runs from Christchurch via Dunedin to Invercargill.

The cityscape glitters with gems of Victorian and Edwardian architecture - the legacy of the city's gold-rush affluence - many including First Church and Larnach Castle designed by one of New Zealand's most eminent architects R A Lawson. Other prominent buildings include Olveston and the magnificent Dunedin Railway Station. Other not-to-be missed attractions include the world's steepest street (Baldwin Street), the famous Captain Cook Tavern, and the local Speight's brewery. Tourists and students alike appreciate tours of the Cadbury chocolate factory.

Dunedin is also notable now as centre for ecotourism. Uniquely, the world's only mainland royal albatross colony and several penguin and seal colonies lie within the city boundaries on Otago Peninsula. To the south of Dunedin, located on the western side of Lake Waihola, lie the Sinclair Wetlands.

The thriving tertiary student population has led to a vibrant youth culture, including a continuation of the musical scene which grew up around the bands of the 1980s, and also more recently a burgeoning boutique fashion industry. A very strong visual arts community also lives in Dunedin and its environs, notably in Port Chalmers and the other settlements which dot the coast of the Otago Harbour, and also in communities such as Waitati.

Sport is catered for in Dunedin by the floodlit rugby and cricket venue of Carisbrook, a soccer and athletics stadium (the New Caledonian Ground) near the University at Logan Park, the large Edgar Centre indoor sports centre, and numerous golf courses and parks. There is also a horseracing circuit in the south of the city (Forbury Park), and several others within a few kilometres. Saint Clair Beach, on the city's Pacific shore, is a well-known surfing venue.

Dunedin features the world's most southern motorway: this 10 kilometre divided highway section of State Highway One (SH1) runs from the centre of the city to the southern suburb of Mosgiel.

Although Dunedin's railway station, once the nation's busiest, is no longer served by regular commercial passenger trains, it is used by tourist services. The most prominent of these is the Taieri Gorge Limited, a popular and famous train operated daily by the Taieri Gorge Railway along a preserved portion of the former Otago Central Railway through the scenic Taieri Gorge. The station is also sometimes visited by excursions organised by other heritage railway societies, as well as trains chartered by cruise ships docking in Port Chalmers.

Local media in Dunedin include the daily newspaper The Otago Daily Times, several local weekly and bi-weekly community newspapers, local radio stations (including the University's station, Radio One), and Channel 9 a local television station.

Geography

Dunedin City has a land area of 3314.8 km², about 10% larger than Cambridgeshire, England, and a little smaller than Cornwall. It is the largest city in land area in New Zealand. The Dunedin City Council boundaries since 1989 have extended to Middlemarch in the west, Waikouaiti in the north, the Pacific Ocean in the east and south-east, and Henley and Taieri Mouth in the south-west.

Dunedin is also home to Baldwin Street, the steepest street in the world according to the Guinness Book of Records, with a slope of 1:2.9 (i.e. for every 2.9 m horizontally the street rises 1 m). The long-since abandoned Maryhill Cablecar route had a similar gradient close to its Mornington depot. The Dunedin skyline is dominated by a ring of hills which form the remnants of a volcanic crater. Notable among these hills are Mount Cargill (700 m), Flagstaff (680 m), Saddle Hill (480 m), and Harbour Cone (320 m).

The heart of the city lies on the relatively flat land to the west of the head of the Otago Harbour. Here is located The Octagon - once a swamp, it was drained in the late 19th century to create a city centre. The initial settlement of the city took place to the north of this swamp and further south on the other side of Bell Hill, a large outcrop which had to be excavated in order to provide easy access between the two parts of the settlement. Today, the central city stretches away from this point in a largely northeast-southwest direction, with the main streets of George Street and Princes Street meeting at The Octagon. Here they are joined by Stuart Street, which runs orthogonal to them, from the Dunedin Railway Station in the southeast, and steeply up to the suburb of Roslyn in the northwest. Many of the older, more established buildings in the city are located towards the northern end of this central area on the floodplains of the Water of Leith, and on the inner ring of lower hills which surround the central city (most of these hills, such as Maori Hill, Pine Hill, and Maryhill, rise to some 200 metres above the plain).

Climate

The climate of central Dunedin is cool temperate, and is greatly modified by its proximity to the ocean. This leads to warm summers and cool winters. Winter can be frosty, but significant snowfall is uncommon (perhaps every two or three years), except in the inland hill suburbs such as Halfway Bush and Wakari, which tend to receive a few days of snowfall each year. Spring can feature "four seasons in a day" weather, but from November to April it is generally settled and mild. Temperatures during summer can top 30°C, but temperatures in the high 30s are rare.

Dunedin has relatively low rainfall in comparison to many of New Zealand's cities, with only some 850 mm recorded per year. It has a somewhat unwarranted reputation for damp weather, probably due to its rainfall occurring in drizzle over a larger numebr of days, whereas northern centres such as Auckland and Wellington receive more rain overall through heavy downpours on relatively fewer days. Dunedin is one of the cloudiest centres in the country, however. Prevailing winds are from the south (cool, damp), and from the northwest (hot and dry in summer, cold and dry in winter). The circle of hills surrounding the inner city creates its own microclimate, often leadings to the main urban area having completely different weather conditions to the rest of Otago.

Inland, beyond the heart of the city, the climate is continental: winters are cold and dry, summers hot and dry. Thick freezing ground fogs are common in winter in the upper reaches of the Taieri River's course around Middlemarch, and in summer the temperature frequently reaches into the high 30s celsius.

List of Dunedin suburbs

For information on individual suburbs, see Suburbs of Dunedin, New Zealand

Inner suburbs
(clockwise from the city centre, starting at due north)

Woodhaugh; Dalmore; Pine Hill; Dunedin North; North East Valley; Opoho; Ravensbourne; Highcliff; Vauxhall; Waverley; Shiel Hill; Anderson's Bay; Ocean Grove (Tomahawk); Tainui; Musselburgh; South Dunedin; St. Kilda; St. Clair; Corstorphine; Kew; Forbury; Caversham; Concord; Maryhill; Mornington; Belleknowes; Brockville; Halfway Bush; Roslyn; Kaikorai; Wakari; Maori Hill; Glenleith.

Outer suburbs
(clockwise from the city centre, starting at due north)

St. Leonards; Broad Bay; Macandrew Bay; Waldronville; Green Island; Abbotsford; Concord; Fairfield.

Towns within Dunedin City limits
(clockwise from the city centre, starting at due north)

Waitati; Warrington; Waikouaiti; Karitane; Purakanui, Port Chalmers; Sawyers Bay, Otakou;Portobello; Brighton; Taieri Mouth; Henley; Allanton; East Taieri; Momona, Mosgiel; Outram; Middlemarch.

Technically, since council reorganisation in the late 1980s these are suburbs, but all are known throughout Dunedin as towns or townships, and none has the usual qualities associated with suburbs. All are separated by a considerable distance of open countryside from the central Dunedin urban area. Anyone describing these places as "suburbs" to a Dunedinite will be met with a puzzled expression.

Panoramas

Noted inhabitants

The arts

Politics and business
  • A large proportion of the country's leading companies in and beyond the 20th century originated in Dunedin. A selection of relevant company or brand names includes Arthur Barnett, Donaghy, Fletcher, Fulton Hogan, Hallenstein, Methven, Mosgiel, NZI, Ravensdown, Wests, Whitcoulls, and Wrightson.
  • The Bell Tea Company was founded here in 1898 and still has one of its factories in Hope Street.
  • Deputy Prime Minister (since 1999) Michael Cullen was Member of Parliament for the Dunedin electorate of Saint Kilda from 1981 until 1999.

Science

Sport

Military

Events

Annual events

Past events

Prominent Dunedin buildings and landmarks

Churches

Places of education

Tertiary

Secondary

Intermediate

Primary

Dunedin International Airport

Dunedin International Airport is located southwest of the city on the Taieri Plains at Momona. It is primarily a domestic terminal, with regular flights to and from Auckland, Christchurch, Wellington, Rotorua, Palmerston North, and seasonal flights to and from Queenstown, Wanaka, and Fiordland, but it also has regular international flights arriving from and departing to Sydney, Brisbane, Melbourne, and Coolangatta.

Twinning

Dunedin is twinned with several cities throughout the world. These include:

More information

External links

Further reading

  • Bishop, G. & Hamel, A. (1993). From sea to silver peaks. Dunedin: John McIndoe. ISBN 0-86868-149-0.
  • Dann, C. & Peat, N. (1989). Dunedin, North and South Otago. Wellington, NZ: GP Books. ISBN 0-477-01438-0.
  • Herd, J. & Griffiths, G. J. (1980). Discovering Dunedin. Dunedin: John McIndoe. ISBN 0-86868-030-3.

1848 establishments | Cities and towns in New Zealand | Dunedin | Otago | Port cities | Scottish names

Дънидин | Dunedin (Neuseeland) | Dunedin | Dunedin | Dunedin | Ōtepoti | Dunedin | Dunedin | Dunedin | Dunedin | Dunedin | 但尼丁

 

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