Motumaoho is a small village in the Waikato region of New Zealand's North Island, just to the west of the Pakaroa Range.

It once had a cheese factory, post office, railway station and garage,[7] but now has only greenhouses, a school and houses.

[11] The nearest known archaeological site[12] is just over the confiscation line and county boundary, about 5km towards Eureka, where a ringditch pā, Mangao Tupua, is on a small knoll at the foot of the Pakaroa Range.

[13] Some early European traders are believed to have traversed the district prior to 1834, when the missionary, John Morgan, travelled up the Piako River and crossed to Horotiu.

[14] In May 1874, he bought two further blocks, Motumaoho No.1 and No.2, and hired Irish navvies from the gold fields to dig a network of ditches to drain the land, enabling it to be used for agriculture.

[17] A 1963 study found much of the vegetation on Motumaoho swamp, to the north of the railway, remained as it had when it built up the peat bogs over about 13,000 years, the two dominant species being giant wire rush and wire rush.

[22] The cheese factory was described as new in 1912, saying the Waikato Dairy Association's offer to build and run it was accepted.

[29] The derelict building remains and, between 2010[30] and 2014, a rusting Bedford OB bus was parked beside it.

[31] In 1926 Palmerston North-based flax miller, Fred Seifert,[32] formed a company to develop[33] 4,000 acres (1,600 ha) of former dairy and scrubland north of Motumaoho.

Although some people chose not to answer the census's question about religious affiliation, 57.4% had no religion, 29.5% were Christian, and 1.6% were Buddhist.

Before the 2023 census, the statistical area had a larger boundary, covering 181.87 km2 (70.22 sq mi).

In 1969 it was replaced by a school with a small library and a staff-room transported from Ohautira.

[29] Agriculture, at 56.9%, was the main occupation in 2013 in Tahuroa census area (to the west of Morrinsville, including Motumaoho).

[51] The quarry contains the index fossil, minotis, dating from the middle Jurassic, Norian age.

[52] The quarry was first developed for road stone by Piako County Council in 1924[53] on land they leased.

[62] On 6 August 1959 Leslie George Kelly,[63] an engine driver and Māori author, was killed in a head-on collision at Motumaoho.

[65] Local buses run to Morrinsville, Hamilton and, once a day to Paeroa via Te Aroha.