Small township just north of Waipawa. Ōtāne was founded in 1874 on part of runholder Henry Tiffen’s 5140-hectare Homewood estate, which had been subdivided into smaller farms. A township called Kaikora emerged during the 1850s and 1860s near present-day Ōtāne, but this declined after Ōtāne became established.
Meaning of place name
Ō: place of; tāne: man; or the moon on the twenty-seventh day of the month.
