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Listen: Las Islas Filipinas

The Philippines is an archipelagic country located in Southeast Asia consisting of over 7,600 islands broadly divided into three groups - Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao. The capital and largest city is Manila. The Philippines has a population of over 109 million and has experienced successive waves of inhabitants including Negritos, Austronesians, and Spanish colonizers beginning in the 16th century who introduced Catholicism. After gaining independence from the United States in 1946 following the Philippine-American War, the Philippines has had a tumultuous democratic experience and is now a founding member of several international organizations with a growing economy transitioning from agriculture to services and manufacturing.

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56 views1 page

Listen: Las Islas Filipinas

The Philippines is an archipelagic country located in Southeast Asia consisting of over 7,600 islands broadly divided into three groups - Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao. The capital and largest city is Manila. The Philippines has a population of over 109 million and has experienced successive waves of inhabitants including Negritos, Austronesians, and Spanish colonizers beginning in the 16th century who introduced Catholicism. After gaining independence from the United States in 1946 following the Philippine-American War, the Philippines has had a tumultuous democratic experience and is now a founding member of several international organizations with a growing economy transitioning from agriculture to services and manufacturing.

Uploaded by

Judiel
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd

The 

Philippines (/ˈfɪlɪpiːnz/ ( listen); Filipino: Pilipinas [ˌpɪlɪˈpinɐs] or Filipinas [fɪlɪˈpinɐs]), officially


the Republic of the Philippines (Filipino: Republika ng Pilipinas),[a] is an archipelagic
country in Southeast Asia. Situated in the western Pacific Ocean, it consists of about 7,641 islands
that are broadly categorized under three main geographical divisions from north to
south: Luzon, Visayas, Mindanao. The capital city of the Philippines is Manila and the most populous
city is Quezon City, both within the single urban area of Metro Manila. Bounded by the South China
Sea to the west, the Philippine Sea to the east, and the Celebes Sea to the southwest, the
Philippines shares maritime borders with Taiwan to the north, Japan to the northeast, Palau to the
east, Indonesia to the south, Malaysia and Brunei to the southwest, Vietnam to the west,
and China to the northwest.
The Philippines' position as an island country on the Pacific Ring of Fire and close to the equator
makes the country prone to earthquakes and typhoons. The country has a variety of natural
resources and a globally significant level of biodiversity. The Philippines has an area of around
300,000 km2 (120,000 sq mi) with a population of around 109 million people. As of 2020, it is the 8th-
most populated country in Asia and the 13th-most populated country in the world.
Multiple ethnicities and cultures are found throughout the islands.
Negritos, some of the archipelago's earliest inhabitants, were followed by successive
waves of Austronesian peoples. 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, beginning in 1565, led to the Philippines becoming part of 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 rebels 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 dictatorship by the People Power
Revolution.
The Philippines is a founding member of the United Nations, World Trade Organization, Association
of Southeast Asian Nations, the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum, and the East Asia
Summit. The Philippines is considered to be an emerging market and a newly industrialized country,
which has an economy transitioning from being based on agriculture to being based more on
services and manufacturing.

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