Taupiri

Taupiri is a small township of about 450 people on the eastern bank of the Waikato River in the Waikato District of New Zealand. It is overlooked by Taupiri mountain, the sacred burial ground for the Waikato tribes of the Māori people, located just to the north.

Taupiri is located near the northern end of the Waikato Basin immediately south of the junction of the Mangawara Stream (which drains the northern part of the basin) and the Waikato River. The Waikato River then flows northward through the Taupiri Gorge between the Hākarimata Range to the south and the Taupiri Range to the north, into the Lower Waikato.

State Highway 1 (SH1) and the North Island Main Trunk railway line run through the town and the gorge, linking Huntly 8 kilometres to the north and Ngāruawāhia 7 kilometres to the south. The intersection of SH1 and State Highway 1b (SH1B) is at the northern end of Taupiri. When the Ngāruawāhia Bypass section of the Waikato Expressway is completed the first 2 kilometres of SH1b will become SH1 which will mean that SH1 will bypass Taupiri.