Otago Region

Otago spans two very different places: Dunedin, a university city with deep Scottish heritage (the name is Gaelic for Edinburgh), and Queenstown-Lakes, New Zealand's premier alpine tourism destination. The region's population was 253,900 as of June 2025, with a GDP of $15.34 billion (2021).

Queenstown-Lakes is genuinely New Zealand's most expensive housing market -- average property value has passed $2 million, higher than Auckland's roughly $1.32 million average -- driven by its tourism economy and limited developable land around the lakes. Dunedin, by contrast, is a real student city: the University of Otago, New Zealand's oldest university and ranked in the world's top 1%, brings a population of 130,000+ that includes over 25,000 students, which shapes everything from rental availability to the city's nightlife and events calendar. Central Otago, further inland, is the world's southernmost commercial wine region, known for Pinot Noir and Riesling grown in a genuinely cool climate.

If you're moving for work, Queenstown-Lakes and Dunedin have almost opposite housing-cost and lifestyle profiles despite sharing a region -- worth being specific about which part of Otago you actually mean when comparing costs.