The Wellington Fault is a right-lateral strike-slip fault that runs directly through the greater Wellington region at the southern tip of New Zealand's North Island, passing beneath the capital city and its harbour. It is one of several major faults of the Marlborough-North Island fault system that carry the plate motion inland from the offshore Hikurangi subduction zone.
The Pacific and Australian plates converge obliquely here, and the Wellington Fault takes up part of the horizontal slip at a rate of around 6 to 7 millimetres per year. Its trace defines valleys and shorelines through the built-up city, so a rupture would strike one of the country's most important urban areas.
Paleoseismic trenching shows the fault has produced large earthquakes of about magnitude 7.5 roughly every 500 to 1,000 years, with its most recent major rupture several centuries ago. Because strain has been accumulating since, it is considered one of New Zealand's highest-priority seismic hazards.