Regions of the Philippines

Philippines

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In the Philippines, regions (Tagalog: rehiyon, ISO 3166-2:PH) are administrative divisions that serve primarily to organize the provinces (lalawigan) of the country for administrative convenience. Currently, the archipelagic republic of the Philippines is divided into 17 regions. Most government offices are established by region instead of individual provincial offices, usually (but not 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.

Contents

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

A clickable map of the Philippines exhibiting its 17 regions and 80 provinces.

As of June 2010, the Philippines consists of 17 administrative regions. Some of the region designations include numeric components, some do not.[1] These 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.[2]

Note that insofar as the Judiciary is concerned, specifically the first and second level courts, the country is divided into judicial regions as provided by Batas Pambansa Bilang 129. The coverage of these judicial regions generally coincides with that of the administrative regions in the Executive branch of government.

Luzon

Map Region
(short name)
Regional center Component local government units
National Capital Region
(NCR; Metro Manila)
Manila
Cordillera Administrative Region
(CAR)
Baguio City
Ilocos Region
(Region I)
San Fernando City, La Union
Cagayan Valley
(Region II)
Tuguegarao City
Central Luzon
(Region III)
San Fernando City, Pampanga
CALABARZON
(Region IV-A)
Calamba City, Laguna
MIMAROPA
(Region IV-B)
Calapan City
Bicol Region
(Region V)
Legazpi City

Visayas

Map Region
(short name)
Regional center Component local government units
Western Visayas
(Region VI)
Iloilo City
Central Visayas
(Region VII)
Cebu City
Eastern Visayas
(Region VIII)
Tacloban

Mindanao

Map Region
(short name)
Regional center Component local government units
Zamboanga Peninsula
(Region IX)
Zamboanga City
Northern Mindanao
(Region X)
Cagayan de Oro
Davao Region
(Region XI)
Davao City
SOCCSKSARGEN
(Region XII)
General Santos City
Caraga Region
(Region XIII)
Butuan
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.

See also

Notes

  1. ^ List of Regions, [National Statistical Coordination Board].
  2. ^ Some regions use acroyms in their names, examples include CALABARZON, which is derived from CAvite, LAguna, BAtangas, Rizal, and QueZON; MIMAROPA, which is derived from MIndoro (for Mindoro Occidental and Mindoro Oriental), MArinduque, ROmblon, and PAlawan; and SOCCSKSARGEN, which is derived from SOuth Cotabato, Cotabato, Sultan Kudarat, SARangani, and GENeral Santos City.
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z aa ab ac ad A highly urbanized city, independent from any province.
  4. ^ An independent municipality, not governed by any province.
  5. ^ a b c d An independent component city, not under the jurisdiction of any provincial government.
  6. ^ A component city, part of the province of Basilan, but whose regional services are provided by the offices of Region IX.

References