Helensville (Māori: Te Awaroa) is a town in the North Island of New Zealand. It is sited 40 kilometres (25 mi) northwest of Auckland, close to the southern extremity of the Kaipara Harbour. State Highway 16 passes through the town, connecting it to Waimauku 16 kilometres (10 mi) to the south, and Kaukapakapa about 12 kilometres (7.5 mi) to the north-east. Parakai is two kilometres (1.2 mi) to the north-west. The Kaipara River runs through the town and into the Kaipara Harbour to the north.

Tāmaki Māori settled the southern Kaipara Harbour in the 13th or 14th centuries, drawn by the marine and forest resources. The upper reaches of the Kaipara River was the location of Te Tōangaroa, a portage where waka could be hauled between the Kaipara Harbour and the Waitematā Harbour. By the 15th century, the area had become home to some of the earliest pā sites in the Auckland Region. By the early 18th century, Ngāti Whātua, who had traditional ties to the area, had re-established themselves along the Kaipara River.

Helensville was established as a kauri logging settlement in 1862, developing into a regional centre for the south Kaipara by the 1870s. Helensville became a major centre for the dairy industry between 1911 and the 1980s.

The name Helensville comes from early settler John McLeod, and is a version of Helen's Villa, his house, that he named after his wife Helen Alexander. The Māori language name, Te Awaroa, means "The Wide River", and is the name of a tributary stream that meets the Kaipara River at Helensville.

Helensville is located on the eastern banks of the Kaipara River, to the south of the Kaipara Harbour. The town is located between two tributaries of the river: the Awaroa Stream to the north, and the Mangakura Stream in the south. The town is located on a spur in the hills slightly higher than the surrounding area, of which the highest point is a 182 m (597 ft) hill located to the south called Paehoka, at the junction between Kiwitahi Road and Old North Road.

The area has traditionally been a wetland and flood plain for the Kaipara River, until the late 19th century when the Kaipara River catchment was developed into farmland. Historically, the hills to the east of Helensville were a kauri-dominated forest.

The Auckland Region has been settled by Māori since around the 13th or 14th centuries. Māori legends describe supernatural beings, the Tūrehu, as being the inhabitants of the area prior to Māori settlement. The Kaipara Harbour is associated with the Tūrehu Tumutumuwhenua and his wife Kui, of whom Ngāti Whātua (the modern-day iwi of the harbour) consider to be ancestors.

One of the earliest known iwi to settled in the area are Te Tini o Maruiwi, who descend from Maruiwi, captain of the Kahutara, one of the first migratory waka, and migrated north into the Kaipara Harbour. Ngāti Whātua traditions tell of the Māhuhu-ki-te-rangi migratory waka arriving at the Kaipara Harbour. Some of the crew members, including Rongomai, Mawete and Po, settled at Tāporapora, with the descendants of Toi, who already lived in the area. Tāporapora was a fertile sandy land that gradually eroded west of the Okahukura Peninsula, of which Manukapua Island is a remnant.