Philippines

The Philippines is a country made of islands.

There are more than 7,000 of them! Some islands are big, and many are tiny. The sea is all around. The capital city is called Manila.

The Philippines is an island country in Southeast Asia, in the western Pacific Ocean, about 800 kilometers off the coast of Vietnam. It is an archipelago, a group of islands: more than 7,000 islands and islets. The largest island is Luzon, in the north, and the second largest is Mindanao, in the southeast.

The capital is Manila, on Luzon, but nearby Quezon City has the most people of any city. In the 2024 census, about 112.7 million people were counted in the Philippines.

The Philippines is an archipelago in the western Pacific, lying about 800 km off the coast of Vietnam. Britannica notes that the islands were long counted as 7,107, but in 2016 the National Mapping and Resource Information Authority announced more than 500 previously uncharted islands. Only about two-fifths of the islands have names, and only some 350 cover 2.6 square kilometers or more.

The large islands fall into three groups: Luzon, Mindoro and Palawan in the north and west; the Visayas in the center, including Cebu, Bohol, Leyte, Negros, Panay and Samar; and Mindanao in the south. Manila is the capital, while Quezon City, also part of Metro Manila on Luzon, is the most populous city. The 2024 Census of Population counted 112,729,484 people on its reference date of July 1, 2024, up from 109.04 million in 2020.

Manila is the capital city.

Quezon City is next to it. It has the most people. Cebu City is on another island. Old Spanish towns and churches still stand.

Manila was founded by the Spanish in 1571 and is the capital. It is part of Metro Manila, a huge city area that also includes Quezon City, home to about 3.1 million people in 2024. Cebu City, on the island of Cebu in the Visayas, grew where the Spanish set up their first lasting settlement in 1565.

The town of Vigan, in northwestern Luzon, was started in the 1500s. Its old streets mix ideas from other parts of the Philippines, from China and from Europe. Four churches from the Spanish period, built between the 1500s and the 1700s, are World Heritage Sites too.

Metro Manila, an agglomeration of Quezon City, Manila, Pasay, Caloocan and several other cities and municipalities, is by far the largest urban area in the country; Wikidata gives Quezon City about 3.08 million and Manila about 1.90 million people in 2024. Manila was founded by the Spanish in 1571, six years after Miguel López de Legazpi established the first permanent Spanish settlement on Cebu. Davao on Mindanao and Cebu in the Visayas are the other principal cities.

UNESCO describes Vigan, founded in the 16th century and inscribed in 1999, as the best-preserved example of a planned Spanish colonial town in Asia; its architecture brings together elements from elsewhere in the Philippines, from China and from Europe. Four Baroque churches of the Spanish period, built between the 16th and 18th centuries in Manila, Santa Maria, Paoay and Miag-ao, were inscribed together in 1993; UNESCO describes their style as a reinterpretation of European Baroque by Chinese and Philippine craftsmen.

The Philippines has many mountains.

Some mountains are volcanoes. Mount Apo is the tallest one. There are big lakes and long rivers. Big storms called typhoons can blow in from the sea.

Most Philippine islands are mountainous, made mainly of volcanic rock and coral. There are about 50 volcanoes, and the national volcano agency lists 24 as active. The highest mountain is Mount Apo on Mindanao, 2,954 meters tall. Taal Lake, near Manila, fills a volcanic crater, and a volcanic cone rises from its middle.

The weather is tropical: rainy winds blow from the southwest from about May to October, and drier winds come from the northeast from November to February. From June to December, typhoons often strike, though Mindanao is usually free of them. On Palawan, a river runs underground through limestone and comes out straight into the sea.

The islands are composed primarily of volcanic rock and coral, and their mountain ranges mostly run north to south, like the islands. The Sierra Madre along Luzon's Pacific coast is the longest range; the Cordillera Central, averaging about 1,800 m, is the most prominent. Mount Apo, near Mindanao's south-central coast, is the highest peak at 2,954 m. Britannica counts about 50 volcanoes; PHIVOLCS, the national institute of volcanology, lists 24 as active, including Taal, Mayon and Pinatubo, whose 1991 eruption was one of the largest of the 20th century.

Taal Lake occupies 244 km² inside a volcanic crater, and Laguna de Bay (922 km²) is the largest lake. The climate is tropical and strongly monsoonal. Typhoons strike most often from June to December, sometimes 25 or more in a year, heaviest in Samar, Leyte, south-central Luzon and the Batan Islands. At Puerto-Princesa, inscribed by UNESCO in 1999, an underground river crosses a limestone karst landscape and emerges directly into the sea, its lower part rising and falling with the tides.

About 112 million people were counted in the Philippines in 2024.

People speak many languages. Filipino and English are used in schools. Many meals have rice with fish, meat or vegetables.

The people of the Philippines belong to nearly 100 different ethnic groups, and there are about 150 languages. The biggest groups are the Tagalog of Luzon and the Cebuano of the Visayas. Filipino, which is based on Tagalog, and English are the official languages and are used in schools.

Most people are Roman Catholic, and about 5 percent are Muslim, mostly on the southern islands. Many main meals are built around rice or rice noodles, with small amounts of chicken, goat, fish or, in non-Muslim communities, pork, plus fruits and cooked vegetables. Relatives from big extended families often gather for weddings and holidays.

Britannica describes nearly 100 culturally and linguistically distinct ethnic groups; the Tagalog and the Cebuano are each about one-fifth of the population, and the Ilocano and Hiligaynon about one-tenth each. Most of the roughly 150 languages are Austronesian (Western Malayo-Polynesian). Pilipino, or Filipino, based on Tagalog, shares official status with English, the lingua franca and a medium of instruction.

Some four-fifths of people are Roman Catholic and roughly one-tenth belong to other Christian churches; Islam, brought to the south from Brunei in the 15th century, is practiced by about 5 percent, largely on the southern islands. Major meals in most communities center on boiled or steamed rice or rice noodles with small amounts of meat or fish. In Muslim communities of Mindanao and Sulu, the kulintang, a set of suspended gongs with a drum, is still heard at festivals. Especially since World War II, people have moved from rural areas to towns and cities: more than four-fifths of the population was rural at the start of the 20th century, roughly two-fifths by the early 21st.