The Central Otago Gold Rush (often simply called the Otago gold rush) is a gold rush that occurs during the 1860s in Central Otago, New Zealand.
Constituting the country's biggest gold strike, the discovery of gold in Otago leads to a rapid influx of foreign miners - many of them veterans of other hunts for the precious metal in California and Victoria, Australia.The rush starts at Gabriel's Gully but spreads throughout much of Central Otago, leading to the rapid expansion and commercialization of the new colonial settlement of Dunedin, which quickly grows to be New Zealand's largest city.
However, only a few years later, most of the smaller new settlements are deserted again, and gold extraction becomes a more commercialized, long-term activity.
