Manila, Philippines

Manila is the capital of the Philippines, a tropical archipelago in Southeast Asia with a Hispanic cultural heritage. Manila is one of the most densely populated major cities in the world, and is part of a much bigger metropolitan area known as Metro Manila. A trade and manufacturing hub, Manila receives a steady influx of people in search of employment, which contributes to its problems of overpopulation and lack of adequate housing.

Landscape

Manila is situated on the eastern shore of Manila Bay, an inlet of the South China Sea on the west coast of the island of Luzon. It straddles the Pasig River, which traverses Luzon and empties into Manila Bay within the city limits. Though partially surrounded by mountainous regions, Manila lies on a swampy coastal plain and has an average elevation of 16 meters (52 feet).

The city proper has an area of 38.55 square kilometers (14.88 square miles). It is divided into 897 barangays, small enclaves based on pre-Spanish colonial settlement structure. The barangays are clustered into sixteen administrative districts without congressional representation. Districts north of the Pasig River include San Miguel, San Nicolas, Binondo, Tondo, Quiapo, Santa Cruz, Sampaloc, Santa Mesa and Santa Ana districts. South of the Pasig are the Port Area, Intramuros, Ermita, Malate, San Andres, Paco, and Pandacan districts. Apart from the administrative districts, Manila is also divided into six legislative districts with congressional representation. The legislative districts are referred to as Districts I–VI.

Metropolitan Manila, or the National Capital Region, is a newly incorporated metropolitan administrative region of seventeen cities and municipalities with Manila as its center. Metro Manila covers 636 square kilometers (245.56 square miles), making it one of the largest metropolitan areas in Southeast Asia.

Manila faces escalating climate threats, including rising temperatures, intensified thunderstorms, and rapidly increasing sea levels that endanger more than 1.5 million residents with frequent flooding. Climate change has also made typhoons more powerful and destructive. In response, the Philippine government has launched a National Adaptation Plan, supported by a US$500 million loan from the Asian Development Bank to bolster climate resilience. The city’s tropical climate remains hot and humid year-round, with average temperatures around 30 degrees Celsius (86 degrees Fahrenheit). From June to November, Manila is typically struck by up to twelve typhoons annually, driven by monsoon winds over the western Pacific. In addition to storms, Manila faces geological risks lying just 10 kilometers (6.21 miles) west of the Marikina Valley fault system, it is vulnerable to seismic activity. Coastal areas are subsiding due to soil compression, and rising sea levels contribute to daily tidal flooding and occasional storm surges that reach further inland.

People

According to 2023 estimates from the CIA World Factbook, the City of Manila had a population of approximately 14.7 million. However, the broader metropolitan area extending beyond the National Capital Region into the provinces of Bulacan, Cavite, Laguna, and Rizal has a population exceeding 25 million, according to the fifteenth annual edition of Dermographia World Urban Areas (April 2019).

In 2023, the World Population Review identified Manila as one of the most densely populated major cities in the world, with a population density of 73,263 people per square kilometer. Informal settlements have proliferated across the city, including near wealthier neighbourhoods, reflecting the shortage of affordable and permanent housing.

As per the CIA World Factbook and the 2020 Census, the population of the Philippines is made up of various ethnic groups, with the largest being Tagalog at 26 percent. Other significant groups include Bisaya/Binisaya at 14.3 percent, Ilocano at 8 percent, Cebuano at 8 percent, and Ilonggo at 7.9 percent. Smaller ethnic groups such as Bikol/Bicol (6.5 percent), Waray (3.8 percent), and Kapampangan (3 percent) also make up a part of the population. Centuries' worth of intermarriage between Filipinos and Chinese has produced an ethnic subgroup known as Tsinoy, or Filipinos with Chinese heritage. Chinese Filipinos have often been victims of prejudice and racism. A considerable Chinese and Tsinoy community in Binondo has earned the district the nickname "Chinatown." Binondo is famous for its Chinese restaurants, stores, and grocers.

Filipino and English are the official languages of the Philippines. The Filipino language is based on Tagalog, spoken by approximately two-thirds of Manilans, is a colloquial version of Filipino and the language upon which Filipino is based. More than half of Manilans speak English. Other languages spoken include Iloco, Samar-Leyte, Pampango, Bicol, Chinese, Cebuano, Hiligaynon, Pangasinan, and Spanish, among others.

Roman Catholicism is the most widely practiced religion in Manila, but there are small minorities of Iglesia ni Cristos, Protestants, Buddhists, and Muslims, among others. Manila's largest Muslim community resides in the district of Quiapo.

Economy

According to the CIA World Factbook, agriculture accounted for approximately 9.4 percent of the Philippines' gross domestic product in 2023, while industry contributed around 28.2 percent, and the services sector made up the largest share at about 62.4 percent. These figures reflect the country's ongoing shift towards a service-based economy, although industry and agriculture continue to play significant roles in the economy.

Manila Bay is where more than 80 percent of all imports enter the Philippines; more than 25 percent of all Philippine exports are shipped from the bay. Manila Bay has attracted numerous industrial firms, making it the manufacturing center of the country.

Electronics, iron and steel, watches, automobiles, tobacco products, leather goods, chemicals, shoes, textiles and clothing, coconut oil, processed foods and beverages, plywood and veneer, cement, paper products, and pharmaceuticals are all manufactured in Manila.

The average industrial firm in Manila is small and Filipino owned, and most produce handmade goods such as furniture and embroidered textiles. Large firms tend to be owned by American, European, and Asian investors who were attracted to Manila by its status as a trade hub. Manila exports electronics, processed foods, mineral ores, textiles and clothing, plywood and veneer, and a rope-making material called abacá.

Unemployment, underemployment, and poverty are very serious concerns in Manila. In 2022, the Philippine Statistics Authority reported that the unemployment rate in the National Capital Region (NCR) was 7.2 percent, compared to 3.1 percent nationwide. Unemployment is further exacerbated by the constant migration of Filipinos to Manila in search of manufacturing jobs. The high unemployment rate is closely linked to the significant number of households living in poverty in the region.

Landmarks

Within the district of Intramuros are two famous landmarks: the ruins of Fort Santiago, and the church of San Agustin. Strategically placed near the mouth of the Pasig River in northwestern Intramuros, Fort Santiago was built by the Spanish in 1571 and served for many centuries as a defensive fortification. During World War II, the Japanese used it as a political prison. It is now a park where a resident theater company often performs.

The Church of San Agustin, built in 1586, was the first Spanish stone church ever to be constructed in the Philippines. It is also the oldest remaining stone church in metro Manila. Despite being heavily damaged during World War II, visitors can still view its ornate wood carvings and trompe l'oeil murals, an art technique which depicts illusionary three-dimensional imagery.

Manila's popular Rizal Park is located south of Intramuros near Manila Bay. The 58 hectare (143 acre) park is where José Rizal, a Filipino hero who championed for widespread reforms, was executed by the Spanish in 1896. The park contains a memorial monument to Rizal in which his remains are buried, as well as Japanese and Chinese gardens, an outdoor amphitheater, a planetarium, and a national museum.

Malacañang Palace in the San Miguel district has been the seat of the Philippine government and official residence of Philippine governor generals and presidents since 1863. The complex includes the presidential quarters and administrative offices. Visitors are permitted to tour its presidential museum.

History

The first modern settlers in Manila were most likely Malays from Borneo who arrived by boat between 800 BCE and 200 BCE. Successive waves of Malay immigrants formed small agrarian villages called barangays throughout the Philippines. Each barangay had as many as two thousand residents. Barangays were autonomous units, but occasionally bartered with each other and forged alliances through marriage.

Muslim traders and missionaries entered the Philippines in the fifteenth century. They converted the native Austronesians, who, as a people, retained the barangay structure of community and lacked a national identity. By the mid-sixteenth century, Muslim sultanates extended as far north as what is present-day Manila.

Explorers in service of Spain reached the Philippines in the sixteenth century and claimed it for the Spanish crown. Poor relationships with the natives prevented the Spanish from establishing a permanent colony in the Philippines until 1565. In 1570, Spanish agents were sent to Luzon to conquer the Manila region, which had become an important trading center with Southeast Asia. They overpowered the Muslims and, in 1571, designated Manila the capital city of the Spanish islands of Las Filipinas.

To protect Manila from invaders, the Spanish built a thick stone wall around it in 1584. This enclosed area, called Intramuros, was laid out like a modern European city, complete with a fort and stone churches. Extramuros, the area outside the walls, contained pueblo-like villages. The Spanish converted the natives in Manila to Catholicism, and from there sent missionaries to other parts of the Philippines. Eventually, nearly all of the Philippines was converted to the Spanish way of life. Not all Filipinos accepted Spanish rule however, and revolutionaries took up arms against the Spanish during the Philippine Revolution (1896–98). The revolution did not succeed in ousting the Spanish from the archipelago, however.

Spanish colonial rule of the Philippines did not come to an end until the conclusion of the Spanish-American War of 1898. The United States defeated Spain within a year, and then purchased the Philippines for $20 million. The transfer of authority was not recognized by Filipino leaders, however, and Filipino revolutionaries fought against the United States during the Philippine-American War. In 1901, the United States recognized the capital city of Manila as a municipality with the right to elect its own officials. It modernized Manila by installing an improved water system, building electrical plants that supplied electricity to the city, widening roads, adding new infrastructure, and providing better health care and education to its residents.

World War II curtailed this period of growth, however. Japanese soldiers invaded Manila in 1942. By the time they surrendered the city in 1945, over 80 percent of Manila had been destroyed. In 1946, shortly after the end of the war, the United States granted the Philippines independence. Manila was named the national capital, and retained this status until 1948. Over the next several decades, Manila benefited from a strong economy and was able to rebuild and expand.

Philippine president Ferdinand Marcos, who held power from 1966 until 1986, curtailed personal liberties, violated human rights, and sent the country's economy into a tailspin by enacting martial law in 1972. In 1976, he proclaimed Manila the capital of the Philippines once again and combined the city of Manila with nearby municipalities to form Metropolitan Manila. Martial law was lifted in 1981, but corruption and a poor economy remained even after a revolution in Metropolitan Manila in 1986 forced Marcos into exile.

Between 1986 and 2016, the Philippines has had six presidents: Corazon Aquino, the nation's eleventh president and widow of opposition leader Benigno Aquino Jr., who had been assassinated in 1983; Fidel Ramos; Joseph Estrada, who was impeached on corruption charges; Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, who had previously served as Estrada's vice president; Benigno Aquino III, son of Benigno and Corazon Aquino; and Rodrigo Duterte, a former longtime mayor of Davao who has declared war on drugs and has publicly approved the extrajudicial killings of drug users and criminals.

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