Regions of the Philippines

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In the Philippines, regions (Filpino:rehiyon, ISO 3166-2:PH) are administrative division that serve primarily to organize the 81 provinces (lalawigan) for administrative convenience. Most government offices establish regional offices instead of individual provincial offices, usually (but not necessarily always) in the city designated as the regional center.

The regions themselves do not possess a separate local government, with the exception of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, which has an elected regional assembly and governor. The Cordillera Administrative Region was originally intended to be autonomous (Cordillera Autonomous Region), but the failure of two plebiscites for its establishment reduced it to a regular administrative region.

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History

Regions first came to existence in on September 24, 1972 when the provinces of the Philippines were organized into 11 regions by Presidential Decree No. 1 as part of the Integrated Reorganization Plan of President Ferdinand Marcos.

Since that time, other regions have been created and some provinces have been transferred from one region to another.

List of regions

The Philippines consists of 17 regions. The regions are geographically combined into the three island groups of Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao. Following is a list of the regions in their island groupings. To get overviews of the regions, see the respective articles on the island groups. The regions CALABARZON, MIMAROPA, and SOCCSKSARGEN are capitalized because they are acronyms that stand for their component provinces or cities.[1]

Luzon

Map Region
(short name)
Regional center Component local government units
Ph locator ncr.png National Capital Region
(NCR; Metro Manila)
Manila
Ph locator car.png Cordillera Administrative Region
(CAR)
Baguio City
Ph locator region 1.png Ilocos Region
(Region I)
San Fernando City, La Union
Ph locator region 2.png Cagayan Valley
(Region II)
Tuguegarao City
Ph locator region 3.png Central Luzon
(Region III)
San Fernando City, Pampanga
Ph locator region 4a.png CALABARZON
(Region IV-A)
Calamba City
Ph locator region 4b.png MIMAROPA
(Region IV-B)
Calapan City
Ph locator region 5.png Bicol Region
(Region V)
Legazpi City

Visayas

Map Region
(short name)
Regional center Component local government units
Ph locator region 6.png Western Visayas
(Region VI)
Iloilo City
Ph locator region 7.png Central Visayas
(Region VII)
Cebu City
Ph locator region 8.png Eastern Visayas
(Region VIII)
Tacloban City

Mindanao

Map Region
(short name)
Regional center Component local government units
Ph locator region 9.png Zamboanga Peninsula
(Region IX)
Pagadian City
Ph locator region 10.png Northern Mindanao
(Region X)
Cagayan de Oro
Ph locator region 11.png Davao Region
(Region XI)
Davao City
Ph locator region 12.png SOCCSKSARGEN
(Region XII)
Koronadal City
Ph locator region 13.png Caraga
(Region XIII)
Butuan City
Ph locator armm.png Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao
(ARMM)
Cotabato City

Defunct regions

The following are regions that do not exist, explanations about their current status follow each region's name.

Notes

  1. Some regions use acroyms in their names, examples include CALABARZON, which is derived from CAvite, LAguna, BAtangas, Rizal, and QueZON; MIMARO, which is derived from MIndoro (for Mindoro Occidental and Mindoro Oriental), MArinduque, ROmblon, and PA'lawan; and SOCCSKSARGEN, which is derived from SOuth Cotabato, Cotabato, Sultan Kudarat, SARangani, and GENeral Santos City.
  2. 2.00 2.01 2.02 2.03 2.04 2.05 2.06 2.07 2.08 2.09 2.10 2.11 2.12 2.13 2.14 2.15 2.16 2.17 2.18 2.19 2.20 2.21 2.22 2.23 2.24 2.25 2.26 2.27 2.28 2.29 2.30 A highly urbanized city, independent from any province.
  3. An independent municipality, not governed by any province.
  4. 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 An independent component city, not under the jurisdiction of any provincial government.
  5. A component city, part of the province of Basilan, but whose regional services are provided by the offices of Region IX.

See also

References