Te Rangi-ita was a Māori ariki (chieftain) of Ngāti Tūwharetoa from the region around Lake Taupō, New Zealand. He participated with bravery in the Ngāti Tama-Ngāti Tūwharetoa War, fought off an invasion by the Ngāti Raukawa chieftain Te Ata-inutai, and forged a peace through his marriage to Te Ata-inutai's daughter, Waitapu. Through their children, he is an ancestor of many hapu of Ngāti Tūwharetoa, including Ngāti Te Rangiita, the main hapu on the south shore of Lake Taupō, where the town of Te Rangi-ita is named after him. He probably lived in the early seventeenth century.

The Ngāti Tama–Ngāti Tūwharetoa War was a conflict which took place around 1600 on the west coast of Lake Taupō in the central North Island of New Zealand, in which Ngāti Tūwharetoa fought against the Ngāti Tama iwi and a part of the Ngāti Raukawa iwi of Tainui. The war marked the end of Ngāti Tama and Ngāti Raukawa claims to the western coast of Lake Taupō. Thereafter, the whole lake was controlled by Tūwharetoa.