Dunedin ( ), (Māori: Ōtepoti), is the
second-largest city in the South Island
of New
Zealand
, and the principal city of the region of Otago. It has the largest council boundary area
of any New Zealand city, and is the hub of the sixth-largest urban
area.
For
historical and cultural reasons and its location, Dunedin is
considered one of the country's four main centres, although
Hamilton
has overtaken Dunedin in its urban-area
population.
The city
of Dunedin stands on the hills and valleys surrounding the head of
Otago
Harbour
. The harbour and hills are the remnants of
an
extinct volcano.
This city is also the
home of the University of
Otago
.
History
Māori settlements
Modern archaeology favours a date around 1100 AD for the first
human (Māori) occupation of New Zealand with population
concentrated along the southeast coast. A camp site at Kaikai's
Beach, near
Otago Heads, has been dated
from 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
fourteenth century.
The population
contracted but expanded again with the evolution of the Classic
culture which saw the building of several pā, 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 a people called Kahui Tipua living
in the area, then Te Rapuwai, semi-legendary but considered to be
historical. The next arrivals were
Waitaha
followed by
Kāti Mamoe late in the
sixteenth century and then
Kai Tahu (
Ngai Tahu in modern
standard
Māori) who arrived in
the mid
seventeenth 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.
European settlement
Lieutenant
James Cook stood off what is now the
coast of Dunedin between February 25
1770 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, the "
Sealers'
War" 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 badly 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.
In 1844, the
Deborah, captained by Thomas Wing and
carrying, among others his wife Lucy and a representative of the
New Zealand Company, Frederick
Tuckett, came south to determine the location of a
free church settlement. After inspecting several
areas around the eastern coast of the south island, Tuckett
selected the site which would become known as Dunedin.
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 special 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
Robert Burns, was the spiritual
guide.
Gold rush era
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.
The
Dunedin
Southern Cemetery
was established in 1858, the Dunedin
Northern Cemetery
in 1872.
Dunedin Railway Station, built in 1906.
360° Panorama: Railway Station from inside.
Dunedin
and the region industrialised and consolidated, and the Main South Line connected the city with
Christchurch
in 1878 and Invercargill 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
cable trams, being both
one of the first and last such systems in the world.
Early in the 1880s
the inauguration of the frozen meat industry, with the first
shipment leaving from Port Chalmers
in 1882, 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 the 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
– the first of their kind in New Zealand – were
founded. More notable buildings such as the Railway
Station
and Olveston
were erected. New energy in the visual arts
represented by
G.P. Nerli culminated in the career of
Frances Hodgkins.
Early Modern era
Historic panorama of the Botanical
Gardens
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. At the same time 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 1940s a new generation of artists
such as
M.T. 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.
Numerous large companies had been established in Dunedin, many of
which became national leaders. Late among them was
Fletcher Construction, founded by Sir
James Fletcher in the early 20th
century.
Kempthorne Prosser,
established in 1879 in Stafford Street, was the largest fertiliser
and drug manufacturer in the country for over 100 years.
G. Methven, a
metalworking and tap manufacturer based in
South Dunedin, was also a leading firm, as was
H. E. Shacklock, an iron founder and appliance
manufacturer later taken over by the Auckland concern
Fisher and Paykel. The
Mosgiel Woollens was another Victorian
Dunedin foundation.
Hallensteins was
the colloquial name of a menswear manufacturer and national retail
chain while the DIC and
Arthur
Barnett were department stores, the former a nationwide
concern. Coulls, Somerville Wilkie – later part of the
Whitcoulls group – had its origins in Dunedin in
the 19th century. There were also the National Mortgage and Agency
Company, Wright Stephensons Limited, the Union Steamship Company
and the National Insurance Company and the Standard Insurance
Company among many others, which survived into the 20th
century.
Post War developments
The Dunedin Botanic Garden
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
William Mason's
Stock Exchange in 1969. (
Dunedin Stock Exchange
building) Although the university continued to expand, the
city's population growth slowed and then contracted, notably from
1976 to 1981. 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 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 flourished at the time. The
music scene continues to thrive , with bands and musicians playing
and recording in many styles, from electronica to reggae to
folk.
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 and polytechnic's growth
accelerated. The city has continued to refurbish itself, embarking
on major developments and redevelopments of the
art gallery, railway station, and Otago Settlers
Museum.
Dunedin has flourishing niche industries including engineering,
software engineering,
bio-technology and fashion.
Port Chalmers on the Otago Harbour provides Dunedin with deep-water port
facilities. The port is served by the Port Chalmers Branch, a branch line railway which diverges from the Main South Line and runs from Christchurch
by way of 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, Otago Boys' High School
and Larnach Castle
are designed by one of New Zealand's most eminent
architects R A
Lawson. Other prominent buildings include Olveston and the Dunedin Railway Station. Other attractions include Baldwin
Street
, the world's steepest street; the famous Captain
Cook Tavern; Cadbury Chocolate Factory(Cadbury World); and the local
Speight's
brewery.
Dunedin is also notable now as a 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, on the western side of Lake Waihola
, lie the Sinclair Wetlands
.
The thriving tertiary student population has led to a vibrant
youth culture (so named 'Scarfies'),
consisting of the before mentioned
music scene, and more recently a
burgeoning boutique
fashion industry.
A 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
.
St Clair Beach, Dunedin.
Sport is
catered for in Dunedin by the floodlit rugby and cricket venue
of Carisbrook
, the new Caledonian
Groundsoccer and athletics stadium near the
University at Logan
Park
, the large Edgar Centre
indoor sports centre, the University
Oval
cricket ground, and
numerous golf courses and parks.
There are
also Forbury
Park
horseracing circuit in
the south of the city and several others within a few
kilometres. St Clair Beach is a well-known
surfing venue, and the harbour basin is popular with
windsurfers and
kitesurfers.
Dunedin has four public swimming pools:
Moana
Pool
, Port Chalmers Pool, Mosgiel, and St Clair Salt
Water Pool.
Geography
Dunedin
City has a land area of , slightly larger than the American
state of Rhode Island
or the English
county of Cambridgeshire, 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 the Waipori/Taieri
River and the township of Henley
in the south-west.
Dunedin
is the most remote city in the world from London
at ( more
than Invercargill, and more than Christchurch), and from Berlin
at .
Its
antipodes are some north of the Spanish
city of A Coruña
, in the Bay of Biscay
.
Inner city
The heart
of the city lies on the relatively flat land to the west of the
head of the Otago
Harbour. Here is The Octagon – once a gully, filled in the mid nineteenth
century to create the present plaza. The initial settlement
of the city took place to the south on the other side of
Bell Hill, a large outcrop which had
to be reduced in order to provide easy access between the two parts
of the settlement. 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 city's notable old
buildings are located in the southern part of this area 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 above the plain).
Dunedin
is home to Baldwin Street, which, according to the Guinness Book of Records, is the
steepest street in the world. Its gradient is 1 in 2.9. The
long since abandoned Maryhill
Cablecar route had a similar gradient
close to its Mornington depot.
Beyond the inner range of hills lie Dunedin's outer suburbs,
notably to the northwest, beyond Roslyn.
This direction
contains Taieri Road and Three Mile Hill, which between them formed
the original road route to the Taieri Plains
. The modern State Highway 1 follows a
different route, passing through Caversham
in the west and out past Saddle Hill.
Lying
between Saddle Hill and Caversham are the outer suburbs of Green Island
and Abbotsford
. Between Green Island and Roslyn lies the
steep-sided valley of the Kaikorai Stream
, which is today a residential and light industrial
area. Suburban settlements – mostly regarded as separate
townships – also lie along both edges of the Otago Harbour.
Notable
among these are Portobello
and Macandrew Bay
, on the Otago Peninsula coast, and Port Chalmers on the opposite side of the harbour. Port
Chalmers provides Dunedin's main deep-water port, including the
city's container port.
The Dunedin skyline is dominated by a ring of (traditionally seven)
hills which form the remnants of a
volcanic crater.
Notable among them
are Mount
Cargill
( ), Flagstaff
( ), Saddle Hill
( ), Signal Hill
( ), and Harbour Cone ( ).
Hinterland
The hinterland within Dunedin city encompasses a variety of
different landforms.
To the southwest lie the Taieri Plains, the broad, fertile lowland floodplains of the
Taieri
River
and its major tributary the Waipori
. These are moderately heavily settled, and
contain the towns of Mosgiel
, East Taieri, and
Allanton
. They are separated from the coast by a
range of low hills rising to some . Inland from the Taieri Plain is
rough hill country.
Close to the plain, much of this is
forested, notably around Berwick
and Lake Mahinerangi
, and also around the Silverpeaks Range which lies northwest of the
Dunedin urban area. Beyond this, the land becomes drier and
opens out into grass and
tussock-covered land.
A high, broad valley,
the Strath-Taieri lies in Dunedin's
far northwest, containing the town of Middlemarch, one of the area's few concentrations of
population.
To the
north of the city's urban area is undulating hill country
containing several small, mainly coastal, settlements, including
Waitati, Warrington
, Seacliff
and Waikouaiti. State Highway 1 winds steeply
through a series of hills here, notably the The Kilmog
. These hills can be considered a coastal
extension of the Silverpeaks Range.
To the
east, Dunedin City includes the entirety of the Otago
Peninsula, a long
finger of land that formed the southeastern rim of the Dunedin
Volcano. The peninsula is lightly settled, almost entirely
along the harbour coast, and much of it is maintained as a
natural habitat by the
Otago Peninsula Trust. The peninsula
contains several fine beaches, and is home to a considerable number
of
rare species, such as
penguins,
seals, and
shags.
Most importantly, it contains the world's
only mainland breeding colony of Royal Albatross, at Taiaroa Head on the peninsula's northeastern point.
List of suburbs
Inner suburbs
(clockwise from the city centre, starting at due
north)
Woodhaugh; Glenleith;
Leith Valley; Dalmore; Liberton; Pine Hill; Normanby
; Mt
Mera
; North East Valley
; Opoho; Dunedin North; Ravensbourne
; Highcliff; Shiel Hill; Challis
; Waverley
; Vauxhall; Ocean Grove (Tomahawk); Tainui
; Andersons
Bay
; Musselburgh; South Dunedin; St
Kilda
; St Clair
; Corstorphine; Kew; Forbury; Caversham; Concord
; Maryhill;
Kenmure; Mornington; Kaikorai Valley; City
Rise; Belleknowes; Roslyn, Otago; Kaikorai; Wakari
; Maori Hill.
Outer suburbs
(clockwise from the city centre, starting at due
north)
Burkes
; Saint
Leonards; Broad Bay
; Company Bay;
Macandrew
Bay; Burnside
; Green Island; Waldronville;
Saddle Hill; Sunnyvale; Fairfield
; Abbotsford; Bradford; Brockville; Halfway Bush
; Helensburgh.
Towns within city limits
(clockwise from the city centre, starting at due
north)
Waitati; Waikouaiti; Karitane
; Seacliff; Warrington; Purakanui; Long
Beach
; Aramoana
; Deborah Bay; Careys Bay
; Port
Chalmers; Sawyers Bay
; Roseneath;
Otakou; Portobello; Brighton
; Taieri Mouth
; Henley; Allanton; East Taieri; Momona
; Outram
; Mosgiel; West Taieri; Waipori; Middlemarch; Hyde
.
Since local council reorganisation in the late 1980s, these are
suburbs, but are not commonly regarded as such. They are usually
regarded locally as towns or townships, and often do not have the
qualities associated with suburbs. Most are separated by a
considerable distance of open countryside from the urban
area.
Climate
The climate of Dunedin in general is temperate, however the city is
recognised as having a large number of microclimates and the
weather conditions often vary between suburbs mostly due to the
city's topographical layout. It is also 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 , 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 recorded per year. Despite this
fact it is regarded by many as a damp city, probably due to its
rainfall occurring in drizzle over a larger number of days
(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, recording
approximately 1650 hours of bright sunshine per annum
Prevailing winds in the city come from two
directions, with cool, damp southwesterlies tending to alternate
with northeasterlies. Warmer, dry northwest winds are also
characteristic
Foehn winds from the
northwest. The circle of hills surrounding the
inner city shelters the inner city from much of
Otago's prevailing weather, often resulting in the main urban area
having completely different weather conditions to the rest of
Otago.
Inland, beyond the heart of the city, the climate is
sub-continental: winters are quite 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 mid-30s Celsius.
Transport
Dunedin features the world's most southern
motorway, the ten-kilometre (6.2 mi) section
of
State Highway
One (SH1) from the centre of the city towards the southern
suburb of Mosgiel.
Dunedin is the northeastern terminus of the
Southern Scenic Route tourist
highway to The
Catlins
, Invercargill and Fiordland
.
Although
Dunedin's railway
station, once the nation's busiest, is no longer served by
regular commercial passenger trains, it is used by local 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 the former
Otago Central Railway through
the scenic
Taieri Gorge.
Taieri Gorge Railway
also operates to Palmerston
once weekly. The station is also
sometimes visited by excursions organised by other
heritage railway societies, and by trains
chartered by
cruise ships docking at
Port Chalmers.
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 international flights arriving
from and departing to Brisbane
year round and seasonally to Sydney
and Melbourne
.
Ferries
operated between Port
Chalmers and Portobello in the late 19th and early 20th
centures. Occasional calls have been made to revive them,
and a non-profit organisation, Otago ferries Inc., has been set up
to examine the logistics of restoring one of the original ferries
and again using it for this route.
In 1866,
plans were made for a bridge across the Otago Harbour between Port Chalmers and Portobello, but this
grand scheme for an 1140-metre structure never eventuated.
Plans
were also mooted during the 1870s for a canal between the Pacific
coast at Tomahawk
and Andersons
Bay, close to the head of the harbour. This
scheme also never came to fruition.
Media
Print
Local media in Dunedin include the daily
newspaper, The
Otago Daily Times, which is the
country's oldest daily newspaper and is part of the
Allied Press group of newspapers. Allied Press
also produces a free weekly community newspaper,
The Star.
There are several other local weekly and bi-weekly
community newspapers, including
Fairfax Media's
Taieri Herald and
D Scene. There is also Dunedin's free weekly
entertainment guide
f*INK. The
University of Otago weekly student publication is the Critic, which
covers news, University and town events and has several weekly
columns.
Radio and TV
There are numerous local radio stations, among them
MediaWorks' local station
Radio Dunedin and the University's station,
Radio One. Dunedin has one
locally-run television station,
Channel 9, part of the
Allied Press group.
Cinema
Films are
shown at Hoyts (a 6-plex in The Octagon), The Rialto (a 5-plex in Moray Place, The Metropolis (Moray Place), and The Academy (Dundas
Street, Dunedin North).
Screenings are also occasionally held at the
city's main live theatre, the Regent Theatre
in The Octagon.
Panoramas
Notable people
Events
Annual events
Past events
Notable buildings and landmarks
Museums, art galleries, and libraries
Churches
Places of education
Tertiary
Secondary
Sport
Major teams
Major grounds and stadia
International relations
Twin towns – Sister cities
Dunedin is
twinned with several cities
throughout the world. These include:
Further reading
- Herd, J. & Griffiths, G. J. (1980). Discovering
Dunedin. Dunedin: John McIndoe. ISBN 0-86868-030-3.
- Smallfield, J. & Heenan, B. (2006) Above the belt: A
history of the suburb of Maori Hill. Dunedin: Maori Hill
History Charitable Trust. ISBN 1-877139-98-X.
Notes
- ; ;
- &
- Turton, Hanson "Introductory"in ;
- &
- Boultbee, J in
- Cook, James in
- ;
- ; ;
- ; ; ;
- Dunedin City council page
- Thread fashion magazine article
- New Zealand Herald article
- Lambert, M. (ed.) (1988) Air New Zealand almanac.
Wellington, NZ: New Zealand Press Association,
p. 394-5. Long-term average, 1951–1980.
- A Descriptive Atlas of New Zealand, A.H. McLintock (ed), New
Zealand Government Printer, 1959 (see Map 8)
- Community archive. Retrieved 2 November 2009.
- Otago
Ferries Inc. Retrieved 2 November 2009.
- Hayward 1998, p.65
- Hayward 1998, p.66
References
External links
— now the Monkey
Bar
(Dunedin campus)
(proposed)
Top topics
Wikis
Quiz
Facts
Map
Misc
Search
