Asia - Philippines | Geography Atlas

Facts

Capital

Manila 2

Population

114,000,000 2

Britannica 2026 estimate, over 114 million.

Population Estimate Year

2026 2

Area (sq km)

347,681 2

Independence or Founding Year

1946 2

The United States granted independence on 4 July 1946, ending nearly five decades of American colonial rule that had itself followed over three centuries of Spanish rule.

Classification

Sovereignty Status

UN Member State 1

Learn More

An Archipelago Between Two Empires

This article records tradition as it has been passed down and reported. Its sources are not yet part of the atlas's verified catalogue.

Few countries changed colonial hands as abruptly as the Philippines did in 1898. Spain had ruled the archipelago for more than three centuries, since Miguel Lopez de Legazpi founded the first permanent Spanish settlement in the 1560s, governing it for most of that time not directly from Madrid but through the Spanish colonial administration in Mexico City, a reminder that the Philippines' Spanish name, honoring King Philip II, arrived by way of a different Spanish empire across the Pacific entirely. The Spanish-American War ended that in a single year: Spain ceded the islands to the United States in the Treaty of Paris, and a new colonial administration, an ocean away from the old one, began almost overnight. The Philippine-American War that followed was fought by Filipinos who had just finished fighting Spain for their own independence and now faced a second colonial power claiming the same territory. American rule lasted until 1946, interrupted by Japanese occupation during the Second World War, and independence finally arrived on 4 July 1946, a date the United States deliberately chose to echo its own.

Seven Thousand Islands, Three Regions

This article records tradition as it has been passed down and reported. Its sources are not yet part of the atlas's verified catalogue.

An archipelago of more than seven thousand islands cannot be governed, or even easily described, as one undifferentiated landmass, and the Philippines has long organized itself around three island groups that function almost as three countries. Luzon in the north holds Manila and the bulk of the country's population and political weight; the Visayas, a scatter of mid-sized islands including Cebu and Panay, sits between Luzon and Mindanao and gave the archipelago much of its early Spanish-era name recognition, the islands Ferdinand Magellan reached in 1521; Mindanao in the south is the second-largest island, historically less integrated into the Manila-centered state and home to the country's largest Muslim population, a legacy of trade contact with the Islamic sultanates of maritime Southeast Asia that predated Spanish colonization entirely. The three-region structure is not a formal administrative unit so much as a geographic fact every Filipino grows up navigating, since moving between them, even today, more often means a flight or a ferry than a road.

Philippines

Cities

94 entries

Subregion

Country (Contained By)

Continent

Population Band

Capital Status

Founding Era

Cities

Alabel

Angeles City

Antipolo

Bacolod

Balanga

Baler

Bamban

Bangued

Basco

Batangas City

Bayombong

Boac

Bongao

Bontoc, Mountain Province

Borongan

Buluan, Maguindanao del Sur

Cabadbaran

Cabarroguis

Cagayan de Oro

Calapan

Caloocan

Capas

Catarman, Northern Samar

Catbalogan

Cebu City

Daet

Datu Odin Sinsuat

Davao City

Digos

Dipolog

Dumaguete

Floridablanca, Pampanga

Iba, Zambales

Ilagan

Iloilo City

Imus

Ipil, Zamboanga Sibugay

Isulan

Jolo, Sulu

Jordan, Guimaras

Kabugao

Kalibo

Kidapawan

Koronadal

La Trinidad

Lagawe

Lamitan

Laoag

Legazpi

Lingayen

Why does the Philippines celebrate its independence on 12 June when it became independent in 1946?

Associated With

Bordered By Water

Has Capital

Long-Form Articles

Same As

Governed By

Nationals Include

Origin Of

Site Of

Found There

Take a Related Quiz