famous road
Baldwin Street
Dunedin's famously vertiginous suburban street, long certified by Guinness as the world's steepest at a 35% gradient: a quirky bucket-list detour for any South Island road trip.
4 km · about 5 min drive
OceaniaNew ZealandOtago
Dunedin
Otago, New Zealand · Oceania
About Dunedin
Dunedin works well as a base: 4km from Baldwin Street.
Dunedin is in Otago, New Zealand, with about 130,000 people. You drive on the left here.
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 ofRead more
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 emigrated to the incorporated city. Dunedin's population and wealth boomed during the 1860s' Otago gold rush. For a brief period of time it became New Zealand's largest urban area. The Union Company, which became the biggest shipping line in the Southern Hemisphere, was founded in Dunedin in 1875. The city saw substantial migration from mainland China at the same time, predominantly from Guangdong and Guangxi. Dunedin is home to New Zealand's oldest Chinese community.
Today, Dunedin has a diverse economy which includes manufacturing, publishing, arts, tourism and technology-based industries. The mainstay of the city's economy remains centred on tertiary education, with students from the University of Otago, New Zealand's oldest university, and the Otago Polytechnic, accounting for a large proportion of the population; 21.6 per cent of the city's population was aged between 15 and 24 at the 2006 census, compared to the New Zealand average of 14.2 per cent. Dunedin is also noted for its vibrant music scene, as the 1980s birthplace of the Dunedin sound (which heavily influenced grunge, indie and modern alternative rock). In 2014, the city was designated as a UNESCO City of Literature.
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Frequently Asked Questions
What is there to see near Dunedin?
Within an hour or so of Dunedin: Baldwin Street (4 km), Tunnel Beach (6 km), Larnach Castle (10 km), Sandfly Bay (12 km).
Are there any good drives near Dunedin?
The nearest famous roads are Baldwin Street.
Where is Dunedin?
Dunedin is in Otago, New Zealand.
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Quick Information
- Population
- 132,800
- Continent
- Oceania
- Country
- New Zealand
- Region
- Otago
- Timezone
- Pacific/Auckland
- Coordinates
- -45.8742, 170.5036
Emergency & Services
Essential numbers in New Zealand
Many rural bridges are single-lane. Give way as signed.
Full driving guide for New ZealandTags
Worth the detour from Dunedin
4 notable places within an hour's drive.
photogenic
Tunnel Beach
A hand-cut sandstone tunnel commissioned in the 1870s descends through the cliff to a hidden cove with a sea arch and stacks, south of Dunedin. A steep 20-minute walk down.
6 km · about 10 min drive
castle
Larnach Castle
1871 Gothic Revival mansion on the Otago Peninsula, New Zealand's only castle, with gardens and views over Otago Harbour.
10 km · about 20 min drive
beach
Sandfly Bay
A steep dune descent on the Otago Peninsula leads to a beach where New Zealand sea lions haul out and yellow-eyed penguins come ashore at dusk, watched from a DOC hide.
12 km · about 20 min drive
Driving roads near Dunedin
- Right hereBaldwin StreetDunedin's famously vertiginous suburban street, long certified by Guinness as the world's steepest at a 35% gradient: a quirky bucket-list detour for any South Island road trip.
Nearby Destinations
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