The area includes three contiguous settlements: Oruatua, near the mouth of the Tauranga Taupō River.

The shores of Lake Taupō were first inhabited by Ngāti Hotu during the fourteenth century.

A descendant of Tūwharetoa named Te Rangi-ita and his son Tama-mutu became important figures in the iwi around the seventeenth century.

[10] Europeans began arriving to the Taupō area in the early nineteenth century.

The settlement is part of the larger Lake Taupo Bays statistical area.