Swanson is an outlying suburb of West Auckland, New Zealand and is located west of Henderson, surrounded by the Waitākere Ranges. Developing as a service centre for the kauri logging and gumdigging trades in the 1880s along the trainline, the town developed as a rural centre and an early tourist destination for Aucklanders, who visited the Redwood Park on the banks of the Swanson Stream. In the 1940s, the park became a training centre for soldiers in World War II, and in 1970 hosted Redwood 70, the first modern music festival in New Zealand.

The Waitākere Ranges is a mountain range in New Zealand. Located in West Auckland between metropolitan Auckland and the Tasman Sea, the ranges and its foothills and coasts comprise some 27,720 hectares of public and private land. The area, traditionally known to Māori as Te Wao Nui o Tiriwa, is of local, regional, and national significance. The Waitākere Ranges includes a chain of hills in the Auckland Region, generally running approximately 25 kilometres (16 mi) from north to south, 25 km west of central Auckland. The ranges are part of the Waitākere Ranges Regional Park.