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The Dunedin Chinese Garden is an example of a late Ming, early Ching Dynasty Scholar's Garden, surrounded by a four metre perimeter wall.

The Scholar's Garden was traditionally the focal point of a family compound, which sometimes gathered several hundred family members and servants into a kind of 'gated' community.

It was in the Scholar's Garden part of the compound where guests and important visitors were received and entertained, and where the Scholar himself (a highly regarded member of Chinese society) lived and worked.

A Chinese Garden is more than just a garden in the European sense. The rocks, water plants and buildings are important, symbolic, elements.

The Dunedin Chinese Garden uses authentic Chinese materials crafted by a team of artisans/craftsmen for Dunedin's sister city of Shanghai. In addition to the hand-made wooden buildings, the Garden features hand-made tiles, bricks and lattice-work and hand-finished granite paving stones.

The use of 'lake stone' - 900 tonnes of it - represents an essential element of Chinese art dating from the Tang Dynasty (600-900 AD).