East Auckland
East Auckland is an area of Auckland, New Zealand, characterised in the popular mind as a socio-economically mixed urban area with a relatively large multi-cultural population. The name "East Auckland" is not an official placename, but is in popular use by New Zealanders. It is also used in the names of some organisations and companies. Coverage and connotations of the name are not precisely defined and vary somewhat with the user.
The East Auckland area includes some south-eastern suburbs within the boundaries of the old Manukau City and Auckland City, typified by Howick, and including Pakuranga, Half Moon Bay, Mount Wellington and Dannemora.
Extents
Broadly speaking, East Auckland is the urban area stretching from the Auckland City suburb of Mount Wellington moving south-east past Pakuranga, southwards through to Greenmount, just north of East Tamaki, and also including the more rural Manukau City townships such as Whitford, Beachlands, Maraetai, Brookby, Clevedon, Highland Park, and Bucklands Beach.
East Auckland does not include the more southern suburbs such as Ardmore, Flat Bush, Alfriston and Papakura.
Nor does East Auckland include the more northern suburbs between Panmure and Parnell (just south of the city centre),[1] which have long been known as Auckland's "Eastern Suburbs" – although this term commonly refers to the more affluent suburbs north of Saint Johns and Glendowie.
What was known as the Howick-Pakuranga area greatly expanded from the 1990s, as many new residential subdivisions were developed, and it is this expanded area that is now somewhat confusingly known as East Auckland. The northern boundary is now in the Mt Wellington area to the north of Pakuranga – where the more central Eastern Suburbs end – and essentially incorporates East Tamaki to the south-west.
Some of the suburbs, such as Dannemora, contain predominantly new housing. The area also contains the widely-recognized shopping area and mall Botany Town Centre.