The Most Beautiful Places in Canterbury
6 places ยท updated 14 October 2026
In short: By our ranking, the most beautiful places in Canterbury are Aoraki / Mount Cook, Lake Tekapo and Lake Pukaki. The list covers 6 places. Last updated 14 October 2026.
Canterbury stretches from the Pacific coast across the wide Canterbury Plains to the crest of the Southern Alps, the mountains thrust up where the Pacific and Australian plates meet. Glaciers coming off those peaks grind rock into fine silt, and the meltwater carries it into the lakes of the Mackenzie Basin, turning them an opaque turquoise. Braided rivers, tussock high country and skies dark enough to be protected as a dark sky reserve complete a landscape that feels larger than the map suggests.
Aoraki / Mount Cook, the highest mountain in New Zealand, is an ancestor in Ngฤi Tahu tradition and the training ground where Edmund Hillary learned his craft. Lake Pukaki lies directly in its line of sight, the peak reflected at the far end of a long glacial lake, while Lake Tekapo holds the same milky colour a short drive away. On Tekapo's shore the small stone Church of the Good Shepherd, built in 1935, frames the lake and mountains through the window behind its altar.
Beside the road to Arthur's Pass, the limestone boulders of Castle Hill, known to Mฤori as Kura Tฤwhiti, stand scattered across a grassy basin like the ruins of a giant's town. Mount Sunday, a lone hill in the Rangitata valley, became Edoras, the hall of the Rohirrim, in The Lord of the Rings films. Summits, lakes, rock gardens and one modest church show how much the region holds between plains and ice.
In this list
| # | Place | Type | UNESCO |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Aoraki / Mount Cook | Summit | |
| 2 | Lake Tekapo | Lake | |
| 3 | Lake Pukaki | Lake | |
| 4 | Castle Hill | Rock formation | |
| 5 | Church of the Good Shepherd, Lake Tekapo | Church building | |
| 6 | Mount Sunday | Rock formation |
01 Aoraki / Mount Cook
New Zealand43.595ยฐ S 170.142ยฐ E
Image by kewl from Pixabay Aoraki / Mount Cook, New Zealand's highest mountain, rises to 3,724 metres in the Southern Alps, the range that runs the length of the South Island. It has three summits in a long, almost level ridge, Low Peak, Middle Peak and High Peak, which give the mountain a distinctive blocky profile seen from east or west.
Did you know? Edmund Hillary made his first ascent in January 1948, and a month later joined the first climb of the South Ridge, renamed Hillary Ridge in 2011.
02 Lake Tekapo
New Zealand43.900ยฐ S 170.525ยฐ E
Image by Holgi from Pixabay Lake Tekapo lies at about 710 metres in the Mackenzie Basin of New Zealand's South Island, a long glacial trough roughly 27 kilometres from end to end and up to 6 kilometres across.
Did you know? The lake reaches about 120 metres at its deepest and holds roughly six cubic kilometres of water.
03 Lake Pukaki
New Zealand44.117ยฐ S 170.167ยฐ E
Image by Makalu from Pixabay Lake Pukaki is one of the three parallel glacial lakes of New Zealand's Mackenzie Basin, and its colour is the first thing anyone remembers: a milky, almost opaque powder blue, unlike the clear water of most lakes.
Did you know? Water from Lake Tekapo is diverted by canal into Pukaki, passing through the Tekapo B power station on Pukaki's eastern shore.
04 Castle Hill
New Zealand43.229ยฐ S 171.716ยฐ E
Michal Klajban ยท CC BY-SA 4.0 High in the Canterbury back country, where the road from Christchurch climbs towards Arthur's Pass, a grassy basin is scattered with hundreds of grey limestone boulders, some the size of houses.
Did you know? Stone from the Castle Hill area was used for the front of ChristChurch Cathedral.
05 Church of the Good Shepherd, Lake Tekapo
New Zealand44.003ยฐ S 170.482ยฐ E
Image by Holgi from Pixabay The Church of the Good Shepherd is a very small building with a very large view.
Did you know? The Murray family of Braemar Station gave the land, and neighbouring land was gifted too so that the church would stay alone on the shore.
06 Mount Sunday
New Zealand43.548ยฐ S 170.893ยฐ E
Jeff Hitchcock from Vancouver, BC, Canada ยท CC BY 2.0 In the upper valley of the Rangitata River, a lone rocky knoll rises from a broad, braided floodplain ringed by snow-streaked ranges. Mount Sunday is only a modest hill, its summit at about 611 metres, but few places in New Zealand capture the scale of the South Island high country so completely.
Did you know? Its name comes from shepherds of two neighbouring stations who met at the hill on Sundays.
How this list is ranked
Places are chosen for how they look, not for how famous they are: each one has its own description and a photograph credited to its author. The order is a single world ranking that weighs the beauty of the place in curated photography together with how widely it is documented โ the number of language editions of its encyclopedia article and how often that article is read in a year. The list is rebuilt as places are added, so the order and the counts on this page are always current.
Questions people ask
- What are the most beautiful places in Canterbury?
- On our list, Aoraki / Mount Cook ranks first, followed by Lake Tekapo and Lake Pukaki.
- Why are Lake Tekapo and Lake Pukaki so blue?
- Both are fed by glaciers of the Southern Alps, whose meltwater carries finely ground rock flour. The suspended particles scatter sunlight and give the water its milky turquoise colour.
- Where was Edoras filmed in The Lord of the Rings?
- The set of Edoras was built on Mount Sunday, an isolated hill in the upper Rangitata valley in Canterbury, surrounded by the Southern Alps.
- How high is Aoraki / Mount Cook?
- Aoraki / Mount Cook stands about 3,724 metres high, the tallest peak in New Zealand. A large rockfall in 1991 lowered its summit.
- What kinds of places are there to see in Canterbury?
- In our collection, the places in Canterbury are most often rock formations (2), lakes (2), summits (1) and mountains (1).
- How many places are on this list in Canterbury?
- The list covers 6 places.