Iloilo City (Iloilo City)
Iloilo City is a conglomeration of former towns, which are now the geographical or administrative districts consisting of: Villa de Arevalo, Iloilo City Proper, Jaro (an independent city before), La Paz, Mandurriao, and Molo. The district of Lapuz, a former part of La Paz, was declared a separate district in 2008. Iloilo was the second Spanish colonial center after Cebu in the Philippine Islands. It was founded in 1566 when the Spanish established a colony area between the towns of Ogtong (present-day Oton) and La Villa Rica de Arevalo (present-day city district). It was one of the royal Spanish cities in the Philippines in the Spanish East Indies. The honorific royal title, "La Muy Leal y Noble Ciudad" which translates to The Most Loyal and Noble City, was given by the Queen Regent of Spain, Maria Christina, for the city's loyalty to the Spanish crown during the Philippine Revolution, the second city to have such a byname in the country after the City of Manila. At the turn of the 20th century, Iloilo was second next to Manila in terms of economic importance in the country. Before the Treaty of Paris ceded the Philippines to the United States in 1898, Iloilo served as the Spanish Empire's last capital in Asia and the Pacific. Iloilo was also the capital of the Federal State of the Visayas, a short-lived state in the central Philippines patterned after the United States federalism and the Swiss confederacy. In modern times, the city remains one of the Philippines' most influential cities in terms of its history, culture, and economy.
The city is the regional hub of education, culinary, religion, healthcare, tourism, culture, industry and economy in Western Visayas. A thriving academic center, Iloilo City is a melting pot which draws foreign and local students from various parts of the country and abroad. Central Philippine University (CPU), a university founded by American Protestants through a grant of John D. Rockefeller as the first Baptist and second American institution of higher learning in Asia, attracts 15,000 enrollees from different parts of the Philippines and twenty-seven foreign countries annually, the largest for a single campus university in the Western Visayan region.
The city's excellent urban planning and the continuing increase in real estate, financing, and business process outsourcing (BPO) demand have been attributed to its being one of the most livable cities in the country with an economic boom. In March 2022, Colliers Philippines named Iloilo among the top locations for the expansion of outsourcing activity outside Metro Manila. According to CBRE Group, by 2025, it is projected to become the third largest hub for the IT-BPO industry in the country.
The name "Iloilo" is derived from the older name "Ilong-ilong" (Philippine Spanish: Ilong̃-ílong̃) meaning "nose-like", referring to the promontory between two rivers (Iloilo and Batiano) where the Fort San Pedro and the 17th-century Spanish port were located.
Map - Iloilo City (Iloilo City)
Map
Country - Philippines
Flag of the Philippines |
Negritos, some of the archipelago's earliest inhabitants, were followed by successive waves of Austronesian peoples. Adoption of animism, Hinduism and Islam established island-kingdoms called Kedatuan, Rajahnates, and Sultanates. The arrival of Ferdinand Magellan, a Portuguese explorer leading a fleet for Spain, marked the beginning of Spanish colonization. In 1543, Spanish explorer Ruy López de Villalobos named the archipelago Las Islas Filipinas in honor of Philip II of Spain. Spanish settlement through Mexico, beginning in 1565, led to the Philippines becoming ruled by the Spanish Empire for more than 300 years. During this time, Catholicism became the dominant religion, and Manila became the western hub of trans-Pacific trade. In 1896, the Philippine Revolution began, which then became entwined with the 1898 Spanish–American War. Spain ceded the territory to the United States, while Filipino revolutionaries declared the First Philippine Republic. The ensuing Philippine–American War ended with the United States establishing control over the territory, which they maintained until the Japanese invasion of the islands during World War II. Following liberation, the Philippines became independent in 1946. Since then, the unitary sovereign state has often had a tumultuous experience with democracy, which included the overthrow of a decades-long dictatorship by a nonviolent revolution.
Currency / Language
ISO | Currency | Symbol | Significant figures |
---|---|---|---|
PHP | Philippine peso | ₱ | 2 |
ISO | Language |
---|---|
EN | English language |
TL | Tagalog language |