Heritage & Museums in Invercargill

In 1856, John Turnbull Thomson, who was the chief surveyor for the Otago province, chose a site for a new southern town and began laying the foundations for what would later become Invercargill. It is a bustling centre in the new province of Southland. Invercargill has grand Victorian, Edwardian, and Art Deco heritage attractions that lend it an attractive old-world character. The city was heavily influenced by early European settlers, from the architecture and street names to the traces of Scottish burr in the rolling R’s of Southland voices.