Queenstown City Guide - Overview

Although Queenstown receives over one million tourists a year, it can hardly be described as a city, having just 9,000 permanent inhabitants. Indeed it has grown little since its establishment in the early 1860s as first a pastoral settlement and then a gold rush town.

Despite this, its attractions for visitors are immediately evident on arrival - look up to see paragliders descending into the town encircled by a backdrop of snow-capped mountains, look around to see thrill seekers jetting about on the shimmering waters of Lake Wakatipu. Put simply, Queenstown's main draws are its stunning surroundings and the astoundingly wide selection of adventure sports on offer within them.

The whole south island of New Zealand is blessed with many beautiful landscapes (the main reason why much of the Lord of the Rings trilogy was filmed here), but Queenstown is located in a particularly idyllic spot on the shores of Lake Wakatipu, surrounded by the Remarkables and Eyre mountain ranges.

In winter, these mountains make Queenstown a key destination for the world's skiers and snowboarders, who visit the ski fields by day and take advantage of the town's many bars and clubs by night.

Although Queenstown has been popular with tourists for over a century, the more recent development of the adventure sports market has produced a real boom. In 1988 the Karawau Bridge, located just outside Queenstown, became the site of the world's first ever commercial bungee jump, created by the sport's inventor AJ Hackett.

Today, adrenaline junkies flock to Queenstown to take part in the many activities on offer here, and the town continues to pioneer new extreme sports such as jet boating, canyon swinging and river boarding.