Нгайо: пригород Веллингтона, Новая Зеландия

Suburb of Wellington City, New Zealand

Ngaio '/n//aɪ//oʊ/ is an inner suburb of Wellington, the capital city of New Zealand. It is situated on the slopes of Mount Kaukau, 3500 metres north of the city's CBD. It was settled in the 1840s and many of its streets are named after early settler families. Ngaio was originally a logging community known first as Upper Kaiwarra, then as Crofton until 1908. The area was administratively part of a separate local authority called the Onslow Borough Council which amalgamated with Wellington City in 1919. Ngaio takes its name from a New Zealand native tree, the ngaio.

Ngaio contains a library, multi purpose hall, pharmacy, petrol station, café, Plunket rooms, dentist, medical centre, tennis courts and a variety of small shops. Ngaio's dwellings are a mix of ages and styles, including original colonial buildings built in the 1860s, railway cottages and bungalows built in the 1920s and 30s, and 1960s weatherboard houses. The Tarikaka Settlement is a small area of former railway cottages built in 1928 on Tarikaka Street, Bombay Street, Carroll Street, Khandallah Road, Ngata Street, Raihania Lane and Pomare Street.

Wellington City Libraries operates Cummings Park Library which is situated at the south entrance of Cummings Park on Ottawa Road. Opened in 1989, and refurbished in 2008, the library's entrance is paved with 850 tiles made by local potters Paul Winspear and Paul Wotherspoon and decorated by children from Ngaio and Chartwell Schools. The library offers internet access, free Wi Fi, word processing, printing and faxing.

Trelissick Park runs from the bottom of the Ngaio Gorge road and runs across the borders of nearby Wadestown and Crofton Downs. The area acts as an ecological corridor between the Harbour and the northern suburbs. The park has historic gunpowder magazines built in the 1870s. While the park contains areas of original forest remnant, it is also under on going restoration work led by the Trelissick Park Group that was set up in 1991. Since then, over 80,000 trees have been planted in the area, along with weed management, trapping and bridge building. Cummings park is off Ottawa road and has a children's playground and dog exercise area.

The suburb is served by the Johnsonville Branch commuter railway which connects it to the central city. There are two railway stations in Ngaio; Ngaio railway station and Awarua Street railway station. Buses operate two bus routes through Ngaio; numbers 25 and 26. Route 22 is operated by NZ Bus

Ngaio Gorge is the main road between Ngaio and Wellington city and is a key transport route in the event of an earthquake. Heavy rains in July 2017 resulted in a large landslide, with boulders and rubble completely covering the road. In the following weeks, 3500 cubic metres of rubble were cleared and a temporary 42 metre long shipping container wall was installed to protect the road from further slips. A temporary road next to Trelissick Park was created to handle uphill traffic when the main road was reduced to one lane. The Wellington City Council planned to extend the shipping container wall in preparation for construction of a permanent solution in late 2019.

Ngaio is within the enrolment zones for Wellington Girls' College, Onslow College, St Oran's College, Raroa Normal Intermediate and Ngaio School.

Ngaio School is a coeducational contributing (years 1–6) state primary school, established in 1908. In 1928 it was moved to its current location at 45 Abbott Street. It has a roll of as of The school does not have a uniform. Its school song is Tūrangawaewae, Māori for "A Place to Stand". The school acts as a Civil defense centre set up by the Wellington Regional Emergency Management Office (WREMO) to provide support and information to their surrounding communities. They do not store emergency food, water or other supplies.

Preschool education is provided by Ngaio Kindergarten, Ngaio Playcentre, Ngaio Childspace, Grace Kindergarten, Trelissick Preschool. and Te Kohanga Reo o Ngaio.

Ngaio has three churches. The Ngaio Union Church has modern buildings and serves the Methodist and Presbyterian community. The nearby Anglican All Saints Church, with its distinctive brick tower visible from most places in the suburb was designed by renowned church architect Frederick de Jersey Clere and built in 1928. Also the Onslow Community Church which has a recently built modern hall in Ngatoto Street near the Ngaio/Khandallah boundary.

The area that modern day Ngaio occupies was originally called 'Tarikākā' by Māori, which means 'nest of the kākā', named after the noisy parrot that lived in the area. The mill was taken over by John Chew in 1863, who built a cottage made of local tōtara, rimu and kauri. Chew Cottage still stands today at 19 Ottawa Road which is the now the main road in Ngaio after starting life as the track for John Chew's timber. The college was later sold to Wilson Littlejohn, who would eventually become mayor of Onslow Borough Council. The building that was Crofton College is still occupied at 21 Kenya Street, having survived two fires.

The opening of the railway to Wellington in 1886 (see Johnsonville Branch) enabled people to commute into Wellington, and the line was electrified with more frequent and faster trains in 1938. .

The Kaiwara Road (also known as the Ngaio Gorge Road and Kaiwharawhara Road) was built in 1850 to allow for bullock trains to transport wool and wood.

Ngaio was part of the new Onslow Borough from 1890 until 1919, when the borough was amalgamated with Wellington City following a referendum on 31 March 1919. The Borough was named after Lord William Hillier Onslow, who was Governor of New Zealand of the time. This was to placate his family who were appalled with the city's sanitation after his young son Cranley caught typhoid shortly after moving to Wellington. The Borough included the townships of Kaiwarra, Khandallah, Crofton, and Wadestown. In 1896, the Borough had an estimated area of 2,870 acres, a population of 1,530 and 276 dwellings.