Papakura District 6.03

Papakura District is a former local council territory in New Zealand's Auckland Region that was governed by the Papakura District Council from 1989 until 2010. The area makes up the southernmost part of the Auckland metropolitan area.The area was originally a small independent city, until it became Papakura District in the 1989 reorganisation of New Zealand's local governments, and has now been overtaken by Auckland’s urban sprawl. The district is flanked by beaches on the Manukau Harbour to the west, Manukau City to the north and east, and the Franklin District to the south.GeographyIn 2010, Papakura District boundaries covered 123 square kilometres and the centre of the district was located 32 km from downtown Auckland.The geography of the district encompasses fertile plains, the inlets and foreshores of the Manukau Harbour, and the rolling foothills of the Hunua Range; a relatively narrow but strategically well positioned narrow span of land between the Hauraki Gulf and the Manukau Harbour. Much of the district – particularly in the west – is flat to rolling land. There is extensive peat soil in the Takanini area, which was once a vast wetland and peat bog. In the east, low-to-medium-sized foothills lead out into the Hunua range.Keri Hill has pastoral lifestyle blocks overlooking Ardmore; Red Hill offered a strategic vantage point for the indigenous Maori people, but is now a popular suburb; Pahurehure has a harbourside setting on the eastern reaches of Manukau Harbour. Drury is the first genuine country town south of Auckland, and Takanini is Papakura's main industrial zone.