Lake Whangape

Lake Whangape is shallow, supertrophic, lateral and the second biggest lake inside the decrease Waikato River basin. One supply said the name translated to 'a huge sheet of water', another that it turned into a primary's name. From the 1860s the catchment has lost most of its woodland cowl and the lake has modified from clear and wealthy in aquatic plant life to a murky, algal lake. The lake is a lateral lake, dammed by a levee of the Waikato, likely built up due to sea-level rise and sediment from the Taupo Volcanic Zone approximately 2,000 years in the past.

To the west of the lake the rocks are made of the 30m year vintage Whaingaroa and Glen Massey Formations, the Whaingaroan rocks of the Te Kuiti Group. The Karapiro Formation outcrops in the direction of the east of the lake. The lake was on the edge of the area which Ngati Tipa had settled. At the doorway to the lake, Ngapuhi killed forty or 50, in the course of the Musket Wars in 1832.