Parakai is a town in the North Island of New Zealand, sited 43 kilometres (27 miles) northwest of Auckland, close to the southern extremity of the Kaipara Harbour.

West Auckland Airport, a general aviation airfield, is 2 km north of Parakai.

[5] The traditional name for the area was Kaipātiki, referring to the swampy flat land where flounder could be harvested.

[8] As the resort, a new name was needed to differentiate it from Helensville in the south, when a post office was being established.

The results were 79.2% European (Pākehā); 25.8% Māori; 8.9% Pasifika; 8.0% Asian; 0.3% Middle Eastern, Latin American and African New Zealanders (MELAA); and 4.2% other, which includes people giving their ethnicity as "New Zealander".

Parakai is noted for its hot springs with geothermal mineral water occurring naturally.

[19] These pools are fed from bores which draw from a geothermal aquifer which lies in the fractured Waitemata sandstone and compacted alluvial sediments.

This began twenty-five years of tourism and investment in the hot pools (and Parakai more widely) which, at its peak, included a Reserve which contained a Massage Institute, 24 private baths, and men's and women's swimming baths.

[20] The economic downturn of the Depression and onset of World War II caused visitor numbers to dwindle, and by 1958 two of the boarding houses had burned down, and the swimming baths were closed.