Manukau is fifty-two miles from Wellington on the Wellington-Manawatu railway line. Although the township itself is small, there is yet a busy appearance about it, and the streets and by-ways are clean and well laid out. A mile or so out of the village, to the eastward, some noble-looking terraces and well-grassed haunch-backed hills lend a picturesqueness to the country. The settlers have all carved their now richly-grassed lands out of the forest, and are well-to-do, a characteristic which may be said to be general of the industrious farmer all through the Manawatu.

Manukau has four divisions, and at the taking of last census contained 336 souls, divided as under:—Manukau Village, 149; Manukau Road, 101; North Manukau Road, 43; South Manukau Road, 43. It is 97ft above sea-level, and situate in the Otaki Riding of the Horowhenua County.

Mails for Manukau close daily at Wellington at 6 a.m., arriving at Manukau at 9.30 a.m. Mails close at Manukau for Wellington daily at 8.15 a.m., arriving in Wellington at 1 p.m.