It is located 11 kilometres southeast of the Auckland CBD, close to the western banks of the Tāmaki River and the northern shore of the Panmure Basin (or Kaiahiku).

4.6 km up the Tāmaki River Māori would beach their waka (canoes) at the end of a small creek (that now passes under the southern motorway) and drag them overland (where Portage Road is now) to the Manukau Harbour.

In the mid to late 18th century, land along the Western shores of the Tāmaki River were given as a tuku (strategic gift) by Te Tahuri, daughter of Te Horetā of the Ngāti Whātua Ōrākei hapū Ngā Oho, to the Hauraki Gulf iwi Ngāti Pāoa.

[11] By the time missionaries Samuel Marsden and John Gare Butler visited the isthmus in 1820, there were thousands of inhabitants living along the shores of the Tāmaki River at Mokoia.

[12] During the Musket Wars in late September 1821, Mokoia and Mauināina pā were attacked by a Ngāpuhi taua led by Hongi Hika, Pōmare I (Ngati Manu) and Tuhi (Te Ngare Raumati of Pāroa), during a time when the Tāmaki isthmus was relatively unprotected, as many Ngāti Whātua warriors were touring the lower North Island on the Āmiowhenua war party expedition.

[13] Mokoia and Mauināina pā were destroyed, and the land became tapu for Ngāti Pāoa due to the large number of deaths, and was not resettled.

In 1848, 80 Fencible families came here from Ireland and England on the ship Clifton and established a settlement with 99 raupo huts on the eastern shores of the lagoon.

The Panmure fencibles were issued ammunition to defend the Tamaki River and stop any armed Maori attack.

Only the Onehunga fencibles were marched to the hill overlooking Mechanics Bay to join a British line regiment.

[citation needed] Panmure prospered partly due to being on the route between Auckland and the much larger fencibles settlement of Howick in the 1800s.

People and goods used the ferry at the narrow point below Mokoia Pa.[15] Until about the middle of the 20th century, Panmure remained a prosperous but mostly pastoral setting, the smallest borough of Auckland, and described as "a quarter of a square mile of farmlets surrounding a sleepy village that boasted little more than a church, post office, a handful of shops, and a two-storey hotel that was widely known from horse and buggy days".

[16] It was only with the explosive growth of suburbia around it after World War II, and better bridges to Pakuranga that Panmure relatively suddenly started to grow significantly, and become a commercial centre.

Stage 2 of AMETI will see the completion of the 7 km Eastern Busway which will link Panmure railway station with Pakuranga and Botany.

[18] The Panmure Roundabout will become an intersection, a change that will see new investment in the redevelopment of the land adjacent to and north of the rail station.

Following this announcement, Auckland Council and the New Zealand government formed the Tamaki Redevelopment Company to deliver the Tamaki Transformation Programme with the aim of creating a "thriving, attractive, sustainable and self-reliant community through a series of interlinking and complimentary [sic] economic, social, urban space and housing projects".