The Wairarapa district of New Zealand occupies the south eastern corner of the North Island, east of Wellington and south of Hawke Bay. The area is lightly populated, having several rural service towns, with Masterton being the largest.
The district spans the administrative regions of Wellington and Hawke's Bay. Having been settled from both the north and west and been the subject of reorganisations of local government, the district's northern borders are vague and gradually blend into southern Hawke's Bay region. The area south of Mt. Bruce is always known as Wairarapa. The area to the north of Mt. Bruce is called the Tararua (with a district council of the same name) and is in the Manawatu-Wanganui region, because it feeds the headwaters of the Manawatu River, which cuts through a mountain range (Tararua to the south and Ruahine to the north) via the Manawatu Gorge to flow to the west coast of the North Island.
The agricultural industries, including forestry, cropping, sheep and dairy farming are major land users. The area around Martinborough, in the south, is renowned for its vineyards and wine, while beer has been made at Mangatainoka, in the north, since 1889.
Many of New Zealand's endangered native birds can be seen at the National Wildlife Centre at Mt. Bruce, which lies just south of Eketahuna, considered by some to be the epitome of rural New Zealand towns.
