The suburb is in the North Shore ward, one of the thirteen administrative divisions of Auckland Council.

[5] Belmont is an isthmus on the Devonport Peninsula of the North Shore, located between Shoal Bay and the Rangitoto Channel of the Hauraki Gulf.

The suburb is bordered by Hauraki to the north, Bayswater to the southwest and Narrow Neck to the southeast.

[7] The North Shore is primarily uplifted Waitemata Group sandstone, that was deposited on the sea floor during the Early Miocene, between 22 and 16 million years ago.

[8] Prior to human settlement, much of Belmont was a kauri-dominated northern broadleaf podocarp forest, with Pōhutukawa trees being a major feature of the coastline.

Wai-o-Roka, the small tidal inlet of Shoal Bay that separates Belmont from Hauraki, and Takawhenua ("The Fall of the Land"), a place located along the cliffs of the northern shores of the suburb.

[17] In 1859, a brickworks was established in the suburb on the Shoal Bay coast,[18] and by the 1860s the area between Belmont and O'Neills Point had become important locations where kauri gum diggers could uncover the resource.

[8] By the late 1880s, Takapuna had developed into a destination for tourists, and large summer residences were constructed in the area.

[8] One of these residences was Earnscliffe, a Victorian eclectic manor constructed in 1882 for journalist Charles Robert Williamson.

[24] During the 1950s, the New Zealand Government constructed housing for the staff of Devonport Naval Base at Belmont and Bayswater.

[8] In 1952, Belmont Intermediate School was constructed adjacent to Takapuna Grammar,[8] and in 1960 St Luke's Catholic church was built.

In June 1889 the road board was dissolved, in favour of Takapuna being under the direct control of the Waitemata County Council.

It is a part of the North Shore ward, which elects two councillors to the Auckland Council.