The Luminaries takes place in the South Island of New Zealand during the Gold Rush. In 1861, Gabriel Read, an Australian gold digger and veteran of the gold rush of the 1850s, published a letter describing gold finds in Otago, a region near the southeast coast of the South Island (“Read, Thomas Gabriel.” Te Ara—The Encyclopedia of New Zealand). This sparked the Otago Gold Rush and prompted the development of the town of Dunedin. Many of the events in The Luminaries that occur in 1865 take place in Dunedin, and Crosbie finds his big stash of gold in the Otago goldfields.

By the mid-1860s, the gold in Otago had started to dry up and prospectors set their sights on the Arahura Valley, to the northwest of Dunedin on the West Coast. In 1860, the Arahura Valley was purchased from the Poutini Ngai Tahu Māori people by the British Crown for 300 pounds sterling (“Arahura Deed, 1860.” West Coast New Zealand History, 2024). In The Luminaries, Tauwhare references this transaction and expresses his anger about his people losing their land. Crosbie’s cottage is built on land formerly owned by the Poutini Ngai Tahu and borders their remaining land.