It was discovered on 23 March 1985, by astronomer couple Alan Gilmore and Pamela Kilmartin at Mount John University Observatory near Lake Tekapo, New Zealand.
[4][12]: 13, 23 Canterbury orbits the Sun in the central main-belt at a distance of 2.3–3.3 AU once every 4 years and 8 months (1,703 days).
[1] In October 2010, a rotational lightcurve of Canterbury was obtained from photometric observations by astronomers at the Palomar Transient Factory in California.
Lightcurve analysis gave a rotation period of 15.553 hours with a brightness variation of 0.61 magnitude (U=2).
[3] This minor planet was named after New Zealand's Canterbury Province, on the eastern side of the South Island.