Te Papapa is a suburb of Auckland, New Zealand. It is located nine kilometres to the southeast of Auckland city centre, on the northern shore of Māngere Inlet, an arm of the Manukau Harbour. The residential and light-industrial suburb lies between the suburbs of Onehunga, Penrose, and Southdown, and is at the northern end of the Māngere Bridge which connects it with the South Auckland suburb of Māngere. Train services on the Onehunga Line run through the suburb on the Onehunga Branch line, which reopened in 2010. Services at Te Papapa station commenced on 19 September 2010. Carter Holt Harvey's head office is located at 173 Captain Springs Road in the Te Papapa area. It has been suggested that the name of the suburb refers to a fortress built of rock slabs. However, at the time Te Papapa Railway Station first opened the area around was commonly known as "Pumpkin Flat" and a short article in the Auckland Star reported that the general manager of the railways had chosen to name the station after the "Maori long pumpkin or Te Papapa" in remembrance of the commonly used name.

Mangere Inlet is an arm of the Manukau Harbour, the southwestern of the two harbours of Auckland, New Zealand and itself an arm of the Tasman Sea. The inlet lies between the Auckland isthmus and South Auckland, and has a size of 6.6 km2 and a catchment of 34.5 km2, being considered to extend to just west of Onehunga. It is an environment highly modified by land reclamation and human uses, with the northern shoreline especially affected. However, the inlet also acts as a natural sedimentation sink, thus being especially at risk of contamination.