The New Zealand Ministry for Culture and Heritage gives a translation of "tall tree fern" for Pongaroa.

Pongaroa is also the location of the New Zealand Centre for Equine Psychology and Behaviour[4] and Wildside Farm environmental education retreat.

[5] Local volunteers have been responsible for the public toilets, the establishment of a freedom campsite, and improvements to the village centre.

At one time during the early settlement years in the latter half of the 19th century, the township was much larger: people expected that the Masterton-Napier Railway would run through Pongaroa.

However, eventually the Wairarapa Line cut through Pahiatua (1897) and thus that township grew, whilst Pongaroa remained a farming community.

Pongaroa became an administrative centre of Akitio County, which functioned between 1899 and 1976.

[7] Pāpāuma marae, a marae (tribal meeting ground) of the Rangitāne tribes and its Ngāti Mutuahi, Ngāti Pakapaka and Te Hika a Pāpāuma hapū (sub-tribes), is located in the Pangaoroa area.

[8] It includes Te Aroha o Aohanga wharenui (meeting house), also known as Pāpāuma.