Pasay

Pasay is a highly urbanized city in the National Capital Region of the Philippines, lying just south of Manila on the shore of Manila Bay. The 2024 census counted 453,186 residents in about 18.6 square kilometres, one of the densest populations in the country. It is best known as the site of most of Ninoy Aquino International Airport and of large developments such as Newport City and the SM Central Business Park. Local tradition places the area within the old confederation of Namayan, and several legends compete to explain the name, from a princess called Pasay to a medicinal shrub called pasaw. Under Spanish rule the Augustinian order evangelised the area, and during the American colonial period it quickly became an urban town. It was merged into a Greater Manila during the Second World War and regained an elected mayor in 1955.