Introduction
Manila, officially the City of Manila, is the capital and second-most populous city of the Philippines after Quezon City. According to the 2024 census, it has a population of 1,902,590 people. Located on the eastern shore of Manila Bay on the island of Luzon, it is classified as a highly urbanized city. With 44,935 inhabitants per square kilometer (116,380/sq mi), Manila is one of the world's most densely populated cities proper. Manila was the first chartered city in the country, designated by Philippine Commission Act No. 183 on July 31, 1901. It became autonomous with the passage of Republic Act No. 409, "The Revised Charter of the City of Manila", on June 18, 1949. Manila is considered to be part of the world's original set of global cities because its commercial networks were the first to extend across the Pacific Ocean and connect Asia with the Spanish Americas through the galleon trade. This marked the first time an uninterrupted chain of trade routes circling the planet had been established. By 1258, a Tagalog-fortified polity called Maynila existed on the site of modern Manila. On June 24, 1571, after the defeat of the polity's last indigenous ruler, Rajah Sulayman, in the Battle of Bangkusay, Spanish conquistador Miguel López de Legazpi began constructing the walled fortification of Intramuros on the ruins of an older settlement from whose name the Spanish and English name Manila derives. Manila was used as the capital of the captaincy general of the Spanish East Indies, which included the Marianas, Guam, and other islands, and was controlled and administered for the Spanish crown by Mexico City in the Viceroyalty of New Spain. In modern times, the name "Manila" is commonly used to refer to the entire metropolitan area, the greater metropolitan area, and the city proper. Metro Manila, the officially defined metropolitan area, is the capital region of the Philippines, and includes the much larger Quezon City and the Makati Central Business District. The Pasig River flows through the middle of Manila, dividing it into northern and southern sections. The city comprises 16 administrative districts and is divided into six political districts for the purposes of representation in the Congress of the Philippines and the election of city council members. In 2018, the Globalization and World Cities Research Network listed Manila as an "Alpha-" global city, and ranked it seventh in economic performance globally and second regionally, while the Global Financial Centres Index ranks Manila 79th in the world. Manila is also the world's second most natural disaster-exposed city after Tokyo.
History & Origins
The earliest evidence of human life around present-day Manila is the nearby Angono Petroglyphs, which are dated to around 3000 BC. Negritos, the aboriginal inhabitants of the Philippines, lived across the island of Luzon, where Manila is located, before Malayo-Polynesians arrived and assimilated them. Maynila, along with Tondo, were active trade partners with the Song and Yuan dynasties of China and flourished during the mid to later period of the Ming dynasty. According to a Japanese encyclopedia Wakan Sansai Zue, Luzon or Lusong (Maynila) was referred to as a "kingdom" south of Taiwan. During the 12th century, then-Hindu Brunei called "Pon-i", as reported in the Chinese annals Nanhai zhi, invaded Malilu 麻裏蘆 (claimed by various scholars to be the present-day Manila) as it also administered Sarawak and Sabah, as well as the Philippine kingdoms of: Butuan, Sulu, Ma-i (Mindoro or Laguna), Shahuchong 沙胡重 (present-day Zamboanga), Yachen 啞陳 (Oton), and 文杜陵 Wenduling (present-day Mindanao, Bintulu or Mindoro). In the 13th century, Manila consisted of a fortified settlement and trading quarter on the shore of the Pasig River. Upon the conversion of Brunei from Hinduism to Islam, Manila also followed, as the Bruneian royal family also intermarried with Manila's royal family, as can be gleaned by the personage of Rajah Matanda who was simultaneously king of Manila while being a great-grandson of Sultan Bolkiah of Brunei.
Geography & Climate
The City of Manila is situated on the eastern shore of Manila Bay, on the western coast of Luzon, 1,300 km (810 mi) from mainland Asia. The protected harbor on which Manila lies is regarded as the finest in Asia. The Pasig River flows through the middle of city, dividing it into north and south. The overall grade of the city's central, built-up areas is relatively consistent with the natural flatness of the natural geography, generally exhibiting only slight differentiation. Almost all of Manila sits on top prehistoric alluvial deposits built by the waters of the Pasig River and on land reclaimed from Manila Bay. Manila's land has been substantially altered by human intervention; there has been considerable land reclamation along the waterfronts since the early-to-mid twentieth century. Some of the city's natural variations in topography have been leveled. As of 2013, Manila had a total area of 42.88 square kilometers (16.56 sq mi). In 2017, the City Government approved five reclamation projects; the New Manila Bay–City of Pearl (New Manila Bay International Community) (407.43 hectares (1,006.8 acres)), Solar City (148 hectares (370 acres)), Manila Harbour Center expansion (50 hectares (120 acres)), Manila Waterfront City (318 hectares (790 acres)), and Horizon Manila (419 hectares (1,040 acres)). Of the five planned projects, only Horizon Manila was approved by the Philippine Reclamation Authority in December 2019 and was scheduled for construction in 2021. Another reclamation project is possible and when built, it will include in-city housing relocation projects. Environmental activists and the Catholic Church have criticized the land reclamation projects, saying they are not sustainable and would put communities at risk of flooding. In line of the upcoming reclamation projects, the Philippines and the Netherlands agreed to a cooperation on the ₱250 million Manila Bay Sustainable Development Master Plan to oversee future decisions on projects on Manila Bay.
Under the Köppen climate classification system, Manila has a tropical monsoon climate (Köppen Am), closely bordering on a tropical savanna climate (Köppen Aw). Together with the rest of the Philippines, Manila lies entirely within the tropics. Its proximity to the equator means temperatures are high year-round especially during the daytime, rarely going below 19 °C (66.2 °F) or above 39 °C (102.2 °F). Temperature extremes have ranged from 14.5 °C (58.1 °F) on January 11, 1914, to 38.6 °C (101.5 °F) on May 7, 1915. Humidity levels are usually very high all year round, making the air feel hotter than its actual temperature. Manila has a distinct dry season lasting from late December to early April. A relatively lengthy wet season that covers the remaining period, with slightly cooler daytime temperatures and slightly warmer nighttime temperatures. In the wet season, rain rarely falls all day, but rainfall is very heavy for short periods. Typhoons usually occur from June to September.
Demographics & Culture
According to the 2020 Philippine census, Manila has a population of 1,846,513 people, making it the second-most-populous city in the Philippines. Manila is the most-densely populated city in the world, with 41,515 inhabitants per km2 in 2015. District 6 is listed as the densest with 68,266 inhabitants per km2, followed by District 1 with 64,936 and District 2 with 64,710. District 5 is the least-densely populated area with 19,235. Manila has been presumed to be the Philippines' largest city since the establishment of a permanent Spanish settlement, and eventually became the political, commercial, and ecclesiastical capital of the country. Since colonial times, Manila has been the destination of peoples whose origins are as wide-ranging as India and Latin America. Practicing forensic anthropology, while exhuming cranial bones in several Philippine cemeteries, researcher Matthew C. Go estimated that 7% of the mean amount, among the samples exhumed, have attribution to European descent. Research work published in the Journal of Forensic Anthropology, collating contemporary Anthropological data show that the percentage of Filipino bodies who were sampled from the University of the Philippines, that is phenotypically classified as Asian (East, South and Southeast Asian) is 72.7%, Hispanic (Spanish-Amerindian Mestizo, Latin American, and/or Spanish-Malay Mestizo) is at 12.7%, Indigenous American (Native American) at 7.3%, African at 4.5%, and European at 2.7%. However, this is only according to an interpretation of the data wherein the reference groups, which were cross checked to the Filipino samples; for the Hispanic category, were Mexican-Americans, and the reference groups for the: European, African, and Indigenous American, categories, were: White Americans, Black Americans, and Native Americans from the USA, while the Asian reference groups were sourced from Chinese, Japanese, and Vietnamese origins. In contrast, a different anthropology study using Morphoscopic ancestry estimates in Filipino crania using multivariate probit regression models by J. T. Hefner, while analyzing Historic and Modern samples of Philippine skeletons, paint a different picture, in that, when the reference group for "Asian" was Thailand (Southeast Asians) rather than Chinese, Japanese, and Vietnamese; the reference for "Africans" included West and East Africans, along with Black Americans; and the reference group for "Hispanic" was Colombians (South Americans) rather than Mexicans, the historical and modern sample results for Filipinos, yielded the following ratios: Asian at 48.6%, African at 32.9%, which is attributed to extensive admixture with Negritos since the initial peopling of the Filipino archipleago, and only a small portion classifying as either European at 12.9%, and finally for Hispanic at 5.7%. Between the 1860s and 1890s, in urban areas of the Philippines – especially Manila – according to burial statistics, as much as 3.3% of the population were pure European Spaniards and pure Chinese composed 9.9% of the city's populace. The Spanish-Filipino and Chinese-Filipino Mestizo populations also fluctuated, with the mixed Spanish-Filipinos composing 19% of Manila's population. Eventually, these non-native categories diminished because they were assimilated into the majority Austronesian Filipino population. During the Philippine Revolution, the term "Filipino" included people of any race born in the Philippines. This explains the abrupt drop of the proportion of Chinese, Spanish, and Mestizo peoples across the country by the time of the first American census in 1903, as the foreign and mixed descended peoples identified solely as pure Filipinos. Manila's population dramatically increased since the 1903 census because people tended to move from rural areas to towns and cities. In the 1960 census, Manila became the first Philippine city to exceed one million people – more than five times of its 1903 population. The city continued to grow until the population stabilized at 1.6 million and experienced alternating increases and decreases starting in the 1990 census year. This phenomenon may be attributed to the higher growth experienced by suburbs and the already-very-high population density of the city. As such, Manila exhibited a decreasing percentage share of the metropolitan population from 63% in the 1950s to 27.5% in 1980, and 13.8% in 2015. The much-larger Quezon City marginally surpassed the population of Manila in 1990 and by the 2015 census it already has 1.1 million more people. Nationally, the population of Manila was expected to be overtaken by cities with larger territories such as Caloocan and Davao City by 2020. The vernacular language is Filipino, which is mostly based on the Tagalog language of the city and its surroundings, and this Manilan form of spoken Tagalog has become the lingua franca of the Philippines, having spread throughout the archipelago through mass media and entertainment. English is the language most widely used in education and business, and is in heavy everyday use throughout Metro Manila and the rest of the Philippines. Philippine Hokkien, which is locally known as Lan-nang-oe, a variant of Southern Min, is mainly spoken by the city's Chinese-Filipino community. According to data provided by the Bureau of Immigration, 3.12 million Chinese citizens arrived in the Philippines from January 2016 to May 2018.
Economy & Government
Manila is a major center for commerce, banking and finance, retailing, transportation, tourism, real estate, new media, traditional media, advertising, legal services, accounting, insurance, theater, fashion, and the arts. Around 60,000 establishments operate in the city. In 2024, Manila is the 4th largest economy in the Philippines, with a 4.7% share to the national gross domestic product totaling ₱1.04 trillion. The National Competitiveness Council of the Philippines, which annually publishes the Cities and Municipalities Competitiveness Index, ranks the country's cities, municipalities, and provinces according to their economic dynamism, government efficiency, and infrastructure. According to the 2022 CMCI, Manila was the second-most-competitive highly urbanized city in the Philippines. Manila held the title of the country's most-competitive city in 2015, and since then has been in the top three, denoting Manila is consistently one of the best place to live in and do business. The city has an estimated GDP of ₱987.88 billion and is the 3rd largest economy of the National Capital Region, accounting for 15% of the region's total economy as of 2023. Binondo, the oldest and one of the largest Chinatowns in the world, was the center of commerce and business activities in the city. Numerous residential and office skyscrapers occupy its medieval streets. As of 2013, plans by the city government of Manila to turn the Chinatown area into a business process outsourcing hub were in progress; thirty unoccupied buildings had been already identified for conversion into BPO offices. Most of these buildings are on Escolta Street, Binondo. The Port of Manila is the largest seaport in the Philippines and the main international shipping route into the country. The Philippine Ports Authority oversees the operation and management of the country's ports. International Container Terminal Services Inc., according to the Asian Development Bank, is one of the top-five major maritime terminal operators in the world, and has its headquarters and main operations at the Port of Manila. Another port operator, Asian Terminal Incorporated, has its corporate office and main operations at Manila South Harbor, and its container depository is in Santa Mesa. Manila is classified as a Medium-Port Megacity, using the Southampton system for port-city classification. Manufacturers within the city produce industrial-related products such as chemicals, textiles, clothing, electronic goods, food, beverages, and tobacco products. Local businesses process primary commodities for export, including rope, plywood, refined sugar, copra, and coconut oil. The food-processing industry is one of the most-stable manufacturing sector in the city.
Landmarks & Attractions
Manila welcomes over one million tourists each year. Major tourist destinations include the historic Walled City of Intramuros, the Cultural Center of the Philippines Complex, Manila Ocean Park, Binondo (Chinatown), Ermita, Malate, Manila Zoo, the National Museum Complex, and Rizal Park. Both the historic Walled City of Intramuros and Rizal Park were designated as flagship destinations and as tourism enterprise zones in the Tourism Act of 2009. Rizal Park, also known as Luneta Park, is a national park and the largest urban park in Asia. with an area of 58 hectares (140 acres), The park was constructed to honor of the country's national hero José Rizal, who was executed by the Spaniards on charges of subversion. The flagpole west of the Rizal Monument is the Kilometer Zero marker for distances to locations across the country. The park is managed by the National Parks and Development Committee. The 0.67-square-kilometer (0.26 sq mi) Walled City of Intramuros is the historic center of Manila. It is administered by the Intramuros Administration, an attached agency of the Department of Tourism. It contains Manila Cathedral and the 18th Century San Agustin Church, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Kalesa is a popular mode of transportation for tourists in Intramuros and nearby places including Binondo, Ermita and Rizal Park. Binondo, the oldest Chinatown in the world, was established in 1521 and served as a hub of Chinese commerce before the Spaniards colonized the Philippines. Its main attractions are Binondo Church, Filipino-Chinese Friendship Arch, Seng Guan Buddhist Temple, and authentic Chinese restaurants. Manila is designated as the country's leading destination for medical tourism, which is estimated to annually generate $1 billion in revenue. Lack of a progressive health system, inadequate infrastructure, and the unstable political environment are seen as hindrances to its growth.
Key Facts
- Manila is the capital of Philippines
- Population: approximately 1.9 million
- Elevation: 9 meters (30 feet) above sea level
- Area: 25 km²
- Founded: 1571 AD
- Located in the Southeast Asia region
- Capital of the Philippines
Fun Facts
- It contains Manila Cathedral and the 18th Century San Agustin Church, a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
- Binondo, the oldest Chinatown in the world, was established in 1521 and served as a hub of Chinese commerce before the Spaniards colonized the Philippines.
- Manila serves as the political, economic, and cultural center of Philippines
Quick Facts About Manila
- Country: Philippines
- Continent: Asia (Southeast Asia)
- Country population: approximately 117.7 million
- Capital city status: Manila is the capital of Philippines, the seat of national government, and the location of foreign embassies, parliament, and the head of state's official residence.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the capital of Philippines?
The capital of Philippines is Manila. Manila is the seat of national government, hosts most foreign embassies and consulates, and is typically where the head of state and parliament are located.
What continent is Manila in?
Manila, the capital of Philippines, is located in Asia, in the Southeast Asia region. As Philippines's capital, Manila serves as the country's primary connection to the broader Asian political, economic, and cultural sphere.
Why is Manila the capital of Philippines?
Manila was chosen as the capital of Philippines for reasons that typically combine geography, history, and politics. Capital city selections often reflect a desire for centrality (being accessible from across the country), historical importance (being a longstanding seat of government or culture), or neutrality (being acceptable to multiple regions or ethnic groups within the country). The specific reasons for Manila's designation are detailed in the city's history above.
What is Manila known for?
As the capital of Philippines, Manila is best known for housing the country's central government institutions — parliament, presidential or royal residences, supreme court, and key ministries. It is also typically a major cultural and economic center within Philippines, hosting national museums, embassies, and signature monuments. The introduction and history sections above provide detailed coverage of the city's specific notable institutions and landmarks.
Related Pages
- Philippines Country Guide — full geography, climate, economy, and culture overview
- Flag of Philippines — meaning, history, and design of Philippines's national flag
