The suburb is also home to Ambury Regional Park, a working farm and nature sanctuary run by Auckland Council,[3] that connects to the Kiwi Esplanade and Watercare Coastal walkways.

After being inhabited for hundreds of years by Tāmaki Māori, the area became a Ngāti Mahuta settlement to provide defense of Auckland from the late 1840s until the invasion of the Waikato in 1863.

From later in the 19th century, Māngere Bridge became an important rural area for supplying Auckland with produce and dairy, and from the 1920s it became a popular location for Chinese-run market gardens.

Māngere Bridge developed suburban housing in the 1950s and 1960s, experiencing growth helped by its proximity to Auckland Airport, which opened in 1966.

After the closure of open-air wastewater-treatment ponds in the early 2000s, the part of the harbour surrounding Māngere Bridge underwent significant ecological restoration.

[6]: 10  The Ambury Regional Park and Māngere Lagoon areas have around 100 recorded archaeological sites, including stoneworks and shell middens.

[6]: 5  The area closer to Māngere Mountain has fewer identified sites, likely as the result of modern developments destroying evidence of these.

[6]: 5 In the early 18th century, Te Pane o Mataaho / Māngere Mountain was a major pā for the Waiohua, a confederacy of Tāmaki Māori iwi.

[8]: 63  Paramount chief Kiwi Tāmaki would stay at Māngere seasonally, when it was the time of year to hunt sharks in the Manukau Harbour.

Originally the iwi were based on Maungakiekie / One Tree Hill, but after the death of paramount chief Tūperiri (circa 1795), the Māngere Bridge area and Onehunga became permanent kāinga (settlements) for Ngāti Whātua.

The location was chosen because of the good quality soils for gardening, resources from the Manukau Harbour, and the area acting as a junction for surrounding trade routes.

[12]: 13 [13] The land around Māngere Bridge area was predominantly used to grow kūmara (sweet potato) by Ngāti Whātua Ōrākei.

[13] In the 1820s and early 1830s, the threat of Ngāpuhi raiders from the north during the Musket Wars caused most of the Tāmaki Makaurau area to become deserted.

[13] On 20 March 1840, Ngāti Whātua chief Apihai Te Kawau signed the Treaty of Waitangi at Orua Bay on the Manukau Harbour,[15] inviting Lieutenant-Governor William Hobson to settle in Auckland, hoping this would protect the land and people living in Tāmaki Makaurau.

[17][18] In the late 1840s, Governor George Grey asked Pōtatau Te Wherowhero (then known as a powerful chief and negotiator, but later the first Māori King) to settle his people in the Māngere Bridge area to defend the township of Auckland, in an arrangement similar to the European Fencible Corps settlements on the outskirts of the Auckland township.

[19]: 3 [20]: 39  Pōtatau Te Wherowhero and his people (known as the Māori Militia) settled near to the land where his brother Kati Takiwaru lived, an area of 190 hectares (480 acres) around the base of Māngere Mountain.

Māngere Bridge was settled by a mix of Waikato-Tainui, Ngāti Whatua, Waiohua-descendant tribes such as Te Ākitai Waiohua and a minority of European/Pākehā farmers.

[19]: 3  In 1858, Pōtatau Te Wherowhero relocated to Ngāruawāhia, with his role as tribal leader of the Māngere settlement taken up by Tāmati Ngāpora.

[19]: 3 [22] In the late 1850s, the St James Anglican Church was constructed as a joint project between European settlers and the Ngāti Mahuta militia, using scoria taken from Māngere Mountain.

Six men remained in the Māngere area, in order to tend to the farms and for ahi kā (land rights through continued occupation).

[23]: 2  In the latter 19th century, Māngere Bridge was well-known for wheat, and produced oats, barley, potatoes and cattle for the growing settlement of Auckland.

[30] Other employers in the area included a quarry established at Taylor Road in the mid-1920s (running until 1963),[23]: 35  rope works,[23]: 11  and a dancehall and tearooms called the Oriental Rendezvous, which was built on the waterfront and became a regular fixture of Auckland nightlife until it burnt down in 1932.

[23]: 22 In the 1950s, the area changed from mostly rural to suburban, as Māngere Bridge was developed for housing, extending west past Seaforth Avenue in 1959.

[23]: 23  The Māngere Bridge town centre began to develop in the 1950s and 1960s (mostly undeveloped until this time, due to the close proximity of the shops in Onehunga), during which the first banks were built in the suburb.

[35] The Manukau Harbour became the preferred site after Dove-Myer Robinson lobbied against the planned Motukorea / Browns Island sewage plant.

[36] The ponds caused degradation to the environment of the harbour, destruction of traditional fishing grounds at the Oruarangi Creek, strong odours and swarms of Chironomus zealandicus (New Zealand midge) in the surrounding areas.

The partially constructed bridge was picketed for a period of two and a half years, becoming the longest continuous labour strike in the history of New Zealand.

Since the 2008 New Zealand general election, the Māngere electorate has been represented by Aupito William Sio,[88] while Peeni Henare has been the Member of Parliament for Tāmaki Makaurau since 2014.