Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, the current President.

Provinces and regions of the Philippines

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Philippines

The Philippines (Filipino: Pilipinas), officially the Republic of the Philippines (Republika ng Pilipinas), is an island nation located in the Malay Archipelago in Southeast Asia, with Manila as its capital. more...

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It comprises 7,107 islands called the Philippine Archipelago, with a total land area of approximately 300,000 square kilometers or 116,000 square miles, making it the 72nd largest country by area.

Modern day Filipinos are mostly of Austronesian stock, although there are a number of Filipinos with Spanish, Chinese, American, and Arab ancestry.

The country was named "Las Islas Filipinas" (Phillip's Islands) by Ruy López de Villalobos after King Philip II of Spain. Spanish colonial rule began in 1565 and lasted for about three centuries until the Philippine Revolution of 1896. The United States gained possession of the Philippines after the Spanish-American War in 1898 and ruled the country for about five decades. Philippine culture has many affinities with the West. Roman Catholicism is the predominant religion, and Filipino is an official language, along with English.

History

Archeological and paleontological evidence suggests that Homo sapiens existed in Palawan about 50,000 BCE. The Aetas are thought to have arrived in the Philippines more than 30,000 BCE through land bridges, possibly from China or the Andaman islands.

The ancestors of the vast majority of the Filipino people, the Austronesians from Taiwan, settled northern Luzon around 2500 BC. They spread to the rest of the Philippines and later colonized most of Maritime Southeast Asia and the Western Pacific Islands. Muslim, Chinese and Indian traders made contact with the Philippines during the course of the next thousand years until the arrival of the Europeans.

Sailing for the Spanish, the Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan and his crew were the first Europeans to arrive in the archipelago in 1521. Magellan was killed by indigenous warriors in Mactan Island while being involved with political conflicts with Lapu-Lapu. Miguel López de Legazpi arrived in 1565 and formed the first Spanish settlements, and paved the way for colonization. Roman Catholic missionaries converted most of the inhabitants. In the next 333 years, the Spanish military fought off various local indigenous revolts and various external colonial challenges. Such challenges came from the British, Chinese, Dutch, French, Japanese, and Portuguese. The most significant loss for Spain was the temporary occupation of the capital, Manila, by the British during the Seven Years' War. The Philippines was ruled as a territory of New Spain from 1565 to 1821, before it was administered directly from Spain. The Manila Galleon which linked Manila to Acapulco, Mexico travelled once or twice a year, beginning in the late 16th century. The Philippines opened itself to world trade on September 6, 1834.