It is located by the banks of the estuarial Tāmaki River, which is a southern arm of the Hauraki Gulf.

The results were 30.8% European (Pākehā); 22.5% Māori; 40.1% Pasifika; 23.3% Asian; 2.2% Middle Eastern, Latin American and African New Zealanders (MELAA); and 1.5% other, which includes people giving their ethnicity as "New Zealander".

The percentage of people born overseas was 39.2, compared with 28.8% nationally.

[5] Of those at least 15 years old, 753 (23.2%) people had a bachelor's or higher degree, 1,350 (41.6%) had a post-high school certificate or diploma, and 1,158 (35.7%) people exclusively held high school qualifications.

[11] To the west of the suburb is Mount Wellington, a 137-metre volcanic peak which is part of the Auckland volcanic field, and which was formed by an eruption around 9,000 years ago.

It is an ancient Polynesian word for battle; it can also mean full of people, i.e., heavily populated – an ironic possibility given that the Māori name of the heavily populated Auckland isthmus in Māori is Tāmaki-makau-rau.