Dunedin

Dunedin ( dun-EE-din; Māori: Ōtepoti) is the second-most populous city in the South Island of New Zealand (after Christchurch), and the principal city of the Otago region. Its name comes from Dùn Èideann ("fort of Edin"), the Scottish Gaelic name for Edinburgh, the capital of Scotland. With an estimated population of 132,800 as of June 2025, Dunedin is New Zealand’s seventh most populous metropolitan and urban area. For cultural, geographical, and historical reasons, the city has long been considered one of New Zealand's four main centres. The urban area of Dunedin lies on the central-eastern coast of Otago, surrounding the head of Otago Harbour. The harbour and hills around Dunedin are the remnants of an extinct volcano. The city suburbs extend out into the surrounding valleys and hills, onto the isthmus of the Otago Peninsula, and along the shores of the Otago Harbour and the Pacific Ocean. Archaeological evidence points to the beginning of a lengthy occupation of the Dunedin area by Māori between 1250 and 1300 AD, with many pā constructed during the Classical period. Migrations by Kāi Tahu in the mid-17th century were followed by the arrival of Europeans sealers and whalers in the early 1800s. After an initial period of co-habitation and trade, the local Māori population was heavily reduced by introduced illnesses such as measles. Sealer and ex-convict William Tucker was the first European to settle in the region, building a house at Murderers Beach in 1815. The Ōtākou whaling station established by the Weller Brothers was briefly one of the largest European settlements in New Zealand, but closed in the 1840s after whaling stocks had been hunted to near-extinction. A Scottish settlement was established in 1848 by the Lay Association of the Free Church of Scotland, and between 1855 and 1900 many thousands of Scots...