Māngere Bridge is a suburb of Auckland, New Zealand, under the local governance of the Auckland Council. Surrounded by the Manukau Harbour, the area is the most north-western suburb of South Auckland, and is connected to Onehunga in central Auckland by three bridges that cross the Māngere Inlet. Many features of the Auckland volcanic field are found in and around Māngere Bridge, including Māngere Mountain, a feature in the centre of the suburb, and Māngere Lagoon, a volcanic tidal lagoon opposite Puketutu Island in the harbour. The suburb is also home to Ambury Regional Park, a working farm and nature sanctuary run by Auckland Council, that connects to the Kiwi Esplanade and Watercare Coastal walkways. After being inhabited for hundreds of years by Tāmaki Māori, the area became a Ngāti Mahuta settlement to provide defense of Auckland from the late 1840s until the invasion of the Waikato in 1863. From later in the 19th century, Māngere Bridge became an important rural area for supplying Auckland with produce and dairy, and from the 1920s it became a popular location for Chinese-run market gardens. Māngere Bridge developed suburban housing in the 1950s and 1960s, experiencing growth helped by its proximity to Auckland Airport, which opened in 1966. After the closure of open-air wastewater-treatment ponds in the early 2000s, the part of the harbour surrounding Māngere Bridge underwent significant ecological restoration. The suburb is multicultural; many residents are large families, and the housing stock is dominated by brick-and-tile homes built in the 1960s and 1970s. In 2019, the suburb name was officially gazetted as Māngere Bridge. History Māori history Most of the land around Māngere Bridge is formed from lava flows from Te Pane o Mataaho / Māngere Mountain. Archaeological records date fishing activities in the area as far back as the 15th century. The Ambury Regional Park and Māngere Lagoon areas have around 100 recorded archaeological sites, including stoneworks and shell middens. The area closer to Māngere Mountain has fewer identified sites, likely as the result of modern developments destroying evidence of these. In the early 18th century, Te Pane o Mataaho / Māngere Mountain was a major pā for the Waiohua, a confederacy of Tāmaki Māori iwi. The mountain complex may have been home to thousands of people, with the mountain acting as a central place for rua (food storage pits). Paramount chief Kiwi Tāmaki would stay at Māngere seasonally, when