Dunedin Chinese Garden - Name and Commemoration

Name and Commemoration

The garden is named Lan Yuan (蘭園). This was specifically chosen as it was considered to be significant on a number of levels. The character lan (蘭) is the third character in the Chinese name for New Zealand (niu xi lan, 紐西蘭), as well as being part of the name of the Yulan magnolia, popularly thought of as the flower of Dunedin's sister city Shanghai . In the booklet about the garden, it is called "The Garden of Enlightenment".

The garden commemorates the contribution of Chinese people to the history and culture of Dunedin. The city has long had a Chinese population, with many Cantonese people settling in and around Dunedin at the time of the Central Otago Gold Rush in the 1860s, only some 15 years after the city was founded. Over two percent of Dunedin's population is of Chinese descent, among them the city's mayor at the time of the garden's inauguration, Peter Chin.