Listings for: Dunedin > Activities and Attractions > Heritage

Lan Yuan Dunedin Chinese Garden

* Award Winning Garden 
* Air New Zealand Sister City Award 
* Trust Power Dunedin Community Award
* New Zealand Post Local Government Excellence Award
* Our own oasis in the city

A celebration of our Chinese culture and heritage, it is the only authentic scholar’s garden in the southern hemisphere. Visit the teahouse for coffee, traditional tea and snacks. Appreciate the garden at dusk on Wednesday evenings. Join us daily to feed the goldfish.  Explore a garden full of culture that tells a story at every corner.

The Dunedin Chinese Garden commemorates the contribution Chinese people have made, and continue to make, to Dunedin’s history, culture and ongoing prosperity.  It is a gift to the city for all New Zealand, honouring the past, celebrating the present and providing enlightenment on our shared path to the future.

The Dunedin Chinese Garden Trust lead the dream to create an authentic Chinese Garden in Dunedin, with support from the Shanghai Municipal Government and the Dunedin City Council. 

The design of the Garden evolved over a period of eight years to ensure authenticity and cultural accuracy, as well as practical functionality. The Garden construction and design was closely supervised and influenced by the architect from the Shanghai Construction and Decoration Company, and the Shanghai Museum. 

The Garden was pre-fabricated and assembled in Shanghai on a site identical in size and shape to that of Dunedin, then dismantled and transported to Dunedin where it was reconstructed on site using artisans and supervisors from Shanghai. 

The Dunedin Chinese Garden is the only authentic Chinese Garden in New Zealand. It is the first in the Southern Hemisphere and one of less than a handful outside China. 

The Dunedin Chinese Garden Trust handed the Garden to the Dunedin City Council on completion to manage and ensure its continued authenticity and integrity as a lasting footprint of Chinese identity and culture. 

HOURS OF OPENING
Daily:10am – 5pm, closed Christmas Day
Admission charges apply


“Most cherished in this mundane world is a place without traffic; truly in the midst of a city there can be mountain and forest” Wen Zhengming (1470 - 1559)