To the east a narrow stretch of water connects Wellington Harbour with Cook Strait and the open sea; beyond this channel are the scrubby Eastbourne hills, and the high and forested Ōrongorongo Ranges.

The urban area is a mix of suburban housing, retail outlets, schools, light and service industries, recreation grounds (such as a golf course and sports fields), and Wellington Airport.

There are also extensive areas of regenerating native bush, pine forest, and remnant farmland, as well as urban gardens.

A narrow two-lane road circles the peninsula, providing a picturesque route around the many bays, coves and headlands.

On 10 April 1968 TEV Wahine, an inter-island ferry, foundered on Barrett Reef and later capsized near Steeple Rock, a pinnacle just off Seatoun.

The peninsula's topography, with its high ridges and small bays and coves, provides shelter from the wind in many places.

On 15 August 2011, during a prolonged southerly storm, snow fell across the peninsula in the late morning, settling in light drifts on trees, streets and fields.

Notable landmarks include: Cobham Drive is the main road connecting Miramar with the rest of Wellington city.

Weta Workshop, involved in many movies directed by Jackson, such as The Lord of the Rings film trilogy, King Kong, and The Hobbit, is also in Miramar.

[26] The island of Te Motu Kairangi was first settled as long ago as 950 AD when Kupe the explorer arrived.

Ngai Tara were the first to settle on the island,[29] and built the first pā, named "Whetu Kairangi" (bountiful stars) on the hill overlooking Worser Bay.

Around 1460 AD an earthquake named "Haowhenua" (earth swallower)[31][32] raised the land, eliminating the shallow channel and joining the island to the mainland.

Captain Cook anchored off the coast near Miramar on his first visit to New Zealand, and mapped much of the coastline but didn't record the harbour entrance.

winds, I resolved to put into this place, if I found it practicable, or to anchor in the bay which lies before it ……… At one o'clock we reached the entrance of the inlet, just as the tide of ebb was making out; the wind likewise against us, we anchored in twelve fathoms water, the bottom a fine sand.

The easternmost of the Black Rocks, which lie on the larboard side of the entrance of the inlet, bore N. by E. one mile distant; Cape Teerawhitte, or the west point of the bay, west, distant about two leagues; and the east point of the bay N. by E. four or five miles.

[52] Crawford wrote in 1840 that the hills were "chiefly clothed with the common fern mixed with flax" and:the flat may be said to have been chiefly occupied by water spread over about 200 acres of central area, and the water from it extended up the large swamps both to the north and south, lying, in general, nearly flush with the surface of the swamps.Henry Maynard Christie documented two farms on the peninsula by 1847 which he called "Glandavar" and "Tetcott".

In an era when naval power was based mainly on battleships, Miramar Peninsula's strategic position made it ideal for coastal guns to prevent enemy warships from entering Wellington Harbour.

Very little had been spent in Miramar by the county for the previous decade, and locals expressed their anger at the increased rates, resulting in a reduction back to ¾d per £1.

Crawford) contested this in the Supreme Court, winning a ruling that "the rate charged must be in accordance with service rendered in each Riding".

A petition was collected among Miramar residents and presented to the Governor, and on 10 November 1904 the Seatoun Road Board District was constituted as a Borough and proclaimed in the New Zealand Gazette.

Some early accounts mention a land approach by "rough bullock track" over Constable Street hill over the sand isthmus.

[69] In the 1940s and the Second World War the peninsula was still an important component of an evolving coastal defence system, designed to protect the capital, harbour and hinterland from naval attack.

In the Second World War, the advent of naval air power made these coastal fortifications largely redundant, because an enemy could carry out aerial attacks, using planes launched from aircraft carriers well beyond the range of even the largest shore-based guns.

The hill to the west of the Miramar plain was flattened in the 1950s and used to reclaim land from the sea to form the new airport runway.

The residential street of Rongotai Tce ran along the hill ridge and was completely removed and all houses demolished.