Regions of the Philippines
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Map of the Philippines showing the regions and their provinces (click for larger version). |
A
region (
Filipino:
Rehiyon) is an administrative subdivision in the
Philippines. As of
2002, there are 17 of them and 16 of them are further subdivided into 79
provinces (
lalawigan). Regions are generally organized to group provinces that have the same cultural and ethnological characteristics.
The provinces are actually the primary political subdivision. They are grouped into regions 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.
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 names of
CALABARZON,
MIMARO and
SOCCSKSARGEN are capitalized because they are acronyms that stand for their component provinces or cities.
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.
*
July 7,
1975 - Region XII created and minor reorganisation of some
Mindanao regions.
*
August 21,
1975 - Region IX divided into Sub-Region IX-A' and Sub-Region IX-B. Minor reorganisation of some
Mindanao regions.
*
November 7,
1975 - National Capital Region created.
*
August 1,
1989 - Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao created.
*
October 23,
1989 - Cordillera Administrative Region created.
*
October 12,
1990 - Executive Order issued to reorganise the
Mindanao regions but the reorganisation never happened (possibly due to lack of government funds).
*
February 23,
1995 - Region XIII (Caraga) created and minor reorganisation of some
Mindanao regions.
*
1997 - Minor reorganisation of some
Mindanao regions.
*
September 19,
2001 - Most
Mindanao regions reorganised and some renamed.
*
May 17,
2002 - Region IV-A (CALABARZON) and Region IV-B (MIMAROPA) created from the former Region IV (Southern Tagalog) region.
*
May 23,
2005 -
Palawan transferred from
MIMAROPA to
Western Visayas; MIMAROPA renamed to MIMARO.
*
August 19,
2005 -
Palawan - The E.O. 429 of
May 23,
2005 transfering Palawan from
MIMAROPA to
Western Visayas was later held in abeyance by Administrative Order #129.
*
National Statistical Coordination Board*
Philippines-Archipelago (Political Map)*
National Statistics Office
