Te Henga (Bethells Beach) is a coastal community of the Auckland Region in the north of the North Island, Auckland. The Maori name for the area "Te Henga" is in reference to the long foredunes which run along the beach and look like the "Henga" or "Gunwhale" of an upturned Waka hull. This name originally applied to a wide area of the lower Waitakere valley, but during the early 1900s the area became popular with visiting European immigrants who began to refer to the area as "Bethells Beach" after the Bethell Family who live there and still own much of the area. In 1976 the New Zealand Geographic Board officially named the area "Te Henga (Bethells Beach)".