Queenstown Map: Every Place in This Guide, Pinned and Listed

Queenstown sits in the Otago region of New Zealand's South Island, at the northern end of a bay on Lake Whakatipu, which the Department of Conservation also writes as Lake Wakatipu and gives the name Whakatipu Waimāori. The Queenstown Lakes District Council's boating guide puts the lake at 80 km long, 293 square kilometres in area and over 300 m deep for more than half its length, with water at 8 to 10 °C all year. That last figure is the one visitors misjudge: the lake photographs like a swimming lake on a 25 °C January afternoon and it is cold-shock water, which is why lifejackets are compulsory on every recreational vessel of 6 m and under, kayaks included.

Why the lake bends, and why the map reads oddly

The lake runs in a long flattened S, and the town sits on the inside of the first bend. That is why places that look adjacent on a map are an hour apart by road: Kelvin Heights is directly across the water from the town centre and a long way round by car, which is the whole reason the Frankton ferry exists. Te Ara records the Māori account of the shape, in which the lake is the grave of the giant Matau, burned in his sleep so that his body drew up at the knees and burned the curving chasm the water filled.

The same account explains the rise and fall of the lake as his heartbeat, and there is a measurement behind it: Te Ara puts the seiche, the standing wave that moves the water up and down, at a period of 52 minutes and a range of 12 to 20 cm. The five-minute heartbeat repeated in brochures is not a measured figure.

The other Queenstowns

Searches for this map regularly land on the wrong town. There are Queenstowns in South Africa, in Tasmania and in Singapore, and the related searches around this keyword include a Queenstown in Ireland and a Queenstown outlet mall in the United States. Everything on this page is the New Zealand one: latitude about 45 degrees south, in the Otago region, 8 km west of Queenstown Airport, whose code is ZQN.

If your map shows a coastline, it is not this Queenstown.

The map's grey pins are the five parts. Working out from the middle: the town centre on its bay; Fernhill and Sunshine Bay climbing the hillside west of it; Frankton 8 km east where the airport, the hospital and the supermarkets are; Kelvin Heights on the peninsula across the water; and Arthurs Point 7 km north on the Shotover, which carries the jet boat base and the hot pools. Arrowtown, 20 minutes further east, is a separate town rather than a suburb, and it is on the same bus network.

• The town centre is the only part where walking beats driving. Parking is scarce and the streets are short. The town centre page has the detail.
• Frankton is where the practical town is, and where the Frankton Arm Walkway starts. The Frankton page covers staying there.
• Kelvin Heights is the ferry decision: hourly sailings between Queenstown Bay and Frankton Marina at NZ$10 on a Bee Card make it commutable, driving round does not.
• Fernhill and Sunshine Bay are steep, quiet and on a bus route, with two free lakeside walks at the bottom of the hill.
• Arthurs Point is a fifteen-minute drive that feels further because the road climbs out of the basin.

The town centre is about fifteen minutes across on foot and every teal pin inside it is a walk: the wharf, the gondola base, the skydive check-in, the restaurants and the Gardens. The Gardens loop itself is 2 km and the Department of Conservation times it at 40 minutes on the flat. Beyond that the walkability is a trap in one specific way.

The Frankton Arm Walkway leaves the town centre at Park Street and looks like a stroll, but the Department of Conservation's published time of 1 hour to 1 hour 30 minutes is one way, to Frankton Beach, and the two authorities do not even agree on the length: DOC says 7 km and the Queenstown Trails Trust says 8.5 km, because they measure between different endpoints. Walk it out and take the bus or the ferry back.

The climbs that start in town

Three of the green pins begin within walking distance of the lakefront and end well above it. The Tiki Trail leaves the gondola car park on Brecon Street and takes 1 hour one way over 2 km, and DOC's own word for it is steep. Queenstown Hill starts at Belfast Terrace and runs 5.4 km with some 500 m of climb, 2 to 3 hours return.

Ben Lomond starts at the same Tiki Trail and gains 1,438 m to a 1,748 m summit, 6 to 8 hours return, with snow and ice above the bushline from April to November. Being able to walk to a trailhead is not the same as being able to walk the track.

This map is an index of a guide, not a navigation tool. For anything where being wrong has a consequence, use the source.

• The Department of Conservation's Queenstown day walks and bike trails brochure, published March 2025, carries a numbered entry, a time and a distance for every track pinned here, plus its own caveat that all times are approximate and, unless stated, one way.
• DOC's live track alerts and the New Zealand Avalanche Advisory change daily and are the only current word on whether a track is open. Nothing on a guide page can be current in that sense.
• The district council's winter road reports decide whether the Crown Range and the ski field roads are open, gritted or chained. The Crown Range is a Priority 1 winter road, maintained open and gritted when needed between 7 am and 10 pm.
• Skyline's own park map is the only map of the top complex, where the gondola terminal, the luge tracks, the buffet and the Ziptrek treehouse all sit within a few hundred metres of one another.

Where our pins are approximate, and why

Four pins on this map are honest approximations and the note on each says so. Ziptrek publishes no address or coordinates for its treehouse, so it sits on the Skyline complex. NZONE publishes no coordinates for its drop zone, a private airstrip on a working sheep farm about twenty minutes from town, so the pin is the check-in at 35 Shotover Street.

The paragliding pin is the town meeting point rather than a launch site, because the launch depends on the operator and the season. And Little Blackwood publishes no street number, so it is pinned to Steamer Wharf. Every other pin is a published coordinate or a published street address.