Fort Ballance, Military fortification in Wellington Region, New Zealand.

Fort Ballance stands on Point Gordon on the Miramar Peninsula and combines concrete structures, gun emplacements, and barracks integrated into the rocky hillside. The buildings were designed to fit the natural landscape, making the position difficult to spot from the water.

New Zealand's government built the fort in 1885 during rising tensions with Russia, seeking to move away from reliance on British military support. The project marked a turning point when the colony developed its own defense strategy for the Pacific region.

The fort is not named after a person; the name Fort Ballance refers to the site on Point Gordon. Visitors can see the concrete gun pits and the remains of the barracks, and the fort is a Category 1 Historic Place. The wider defence network included Fort Gordon and the Spur Battery, whose ruins were partly buried about 1960.

The fort follows the spur between Mahanga Bay and Scorching Bay, with the command post and communications centre built up on earthworks in the middle and the barracks, magazines and stores to the rear of the gun pits. The concrete gun pits are circular or semi-circular and the emplacements remain intact, though the guns have been removed. Parts of the musketry parapets and loopholed walls at the rear have been demolished, and the tunnel entrances have been filled in.

The seesaw searchlight, installed in 1891 and powered by Fort Ballance's steam engine, used a carbon lamp and a mirror on a pivoting girder to throw a 50,000-candlepower beam from the harbour heads to Ward Island. Only a few were built in the Empire, it proved hard to operate and was abandoned in 1899, though its recessed emplacement survives.