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[[Image:NZ-Middlemarch.png|thumb|right|160px]]
'''Middlemarch''' is a small town (population 300) within the limits of [[Dunedin, New Zealand|Dunedin]] city. It lies some 80km to the west of the city centre, at the foot of the [[Rock and Pillar Range]] of hills in the broad [[Strath-Taieri, New Zealand|Strath-Taieri]] valley, through which flows the middle reaches of the [[Taieri River]].

Middlemarch is mainly a service town for the local farming community. It is the Terminal station of the [[Taieri Gorge Railway]], and the start of the [[Otago Central Rail Trail]].

Originally known as ''Blair Taieri'', there is a popular misconception that the town is named for George Eliot's novel ''Middlemarch''. The true origin of the name is from the obsolete English term "march" meaning a boundary - in this case a middle area between two rivers. As with many places in and close to the [[Maniototo]] area, its name was probably influenced by the Northumberland ancestry of early surveyor John Turnbull Thompson (there is a Middle March region in Northumberland, centred around the town of Otterburn).

== Getting there ==

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|destination=to [[Middlemarch]] |url=information.html
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== References ==

<small>This article uses material from [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middlemarch,_New_Zealand Wikipedia, "Middlemarch, New Zealand"]

Any material derived from Wikitravel articles is released under the [http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/1.0/ Creative Commons Attribution share alike licence]</small>

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[[Category:Otago]]

[[Category:Glenorchy Air Destinations]]
[[Category:Cities, towns and communities in New Zealand]]