Iloilo Province, Visayas
Iloilo Province is a province of the Philippines located on Panay Island in the Western Visayas region.
The capital is Iloilo City.
Iloilo Province is divided into 2 Cities and 42 municipalities
Cities of Iloilo Province.
Iloilo City (Capital City)
Passi City
Municipalities of Iloilo Province.
Ajuy
Alimodian
Anilao
Badiangan
Balasan
Banate
Barotac Nuevo
Barotac Viejo
Batad
Bingawan
Cabatuan
Calinog
Carles
Concepcion
Dingle
Dueñas
Dumangas
Estancia
Guimbal
Igbaras
Janiuay
Lambunao
Leganes
Lemery
Leon
Maasin
Miagao
Mina
New Lucena
Oton
Pavia
Pototan
San Dionisio
San Enrique
San Joaquin
San Miguel
San Rafael
Santa Barbara
Sara
Tigbauan
Tubungan
Zarraga
Airports in Iloilo Province.
Iloilo International Airport, Cabatuan, Iloilo [ILO]
Hotels in Iloilo Province.
Check HotelsCombined for Holiday Accomodation in Iloilo, Visayas
Special Events in Iloilo Province.
TBA
Government Website for Iloilo Province.
Recent Iloilo Posts:
History of Iloilo (from wikipedia.org)
Before the arrival of the Europeans
No pre-Hispanic written accounts of Iloilo and Panay island exist today. Oral traditions, in the form of recited epics like the Hinilawod, has survived to a small degree. A few recordings of these epic poems exist. The most notable are the works of noted Filipino Anthropologist Felipe Jocano.
While no current archaeological evidence exist describing pre-Hispanic Iloilo, an original work by Pedro Alcantara Monteclaro published in 1907 called Maragtas details the alleged accounts of the founding of the various pre-Hispanic polities on Panay Island. The book is based on oral and written accounts available to the author at the time. The author made no claim on the historical accuracy of the accounts.
According to Maragtas, Madja-as was founded after ten datus fled Borneo and landed on Panay Island. The book then goes on to detail their subsequent purchase of the coastal lands in which they settled from the native Ati people.
Datu Paiburong, one of the ten fleeing datus, established a settlement and named it Irong-Irong after an islet of the same name on the Batiano River.
Spanish Colonial era
Spain eventually succeeded on conquering of the island of Panay when Spanish conquistador Miguel López de Legazpi moved his headquarters from the island of Cebu and creating the first Spanish settlement in the island in Ogtong in 1566. This is mainly due in part to the rivalries between the Bisaya and the Moro, of which the former found an ally in Spanish against the latter. The Bisaya accepted alliances with Spain, to defend themselves against the enslaving Moros. To this end, Iloilo contributed troops in the Castille War against the Sultanate of Brunei. In 1581, the encomienda in Ogtong was moved to La Villa Rica de Arevalo, because of frequent coastal raids by the Dutch privateers. Furthermore, an attack in the year 1600 (Part of the Spanish–Moro conflict) where there was a large Muslim armada to destroy Iloilo City, led by two Moros named Sirungan and Salikala who lead the Muslim force of 70 ships and 4,000 warriors that had raided and attacked several Visayan islands in order to abduct slaves to sell to their allies in the Sultanate of Demak and the Sultanate of Malacca, eventually caused the move of the city center further on to the mouth of the Irong-Irong river founding what is now Iloilo City and constructing Fort San Pedro to defend it in 1616. Nevertheless, when the 4,000 Moros led by Sirungan and Salikala tried to attack Iloilo City they were repulsed with heavy losses in the town of Arevalo by a force of 1,000 Hiligaynon warriors and 70 Mexican arquebusiers under the command of Juan García de Sierra, the Spanish officer who died in the battle. Spanish christianized the area.
Soon, the area itself began to prosper, due to its successful textile and sugar industry. As a result, it received Chinese immigrants from the west (that worked for its trades) and Latinos from the ports of Mexico in the east (to man its military installations).
American Colonial era
During the American colonial period, Iloilo became a home to many firsts: including the first department stores and cinema theaters in the Commonwealth of the Philippines. Iloilo experienced severe devastation during the events of World War II. It became a province of the newly fledged Republic of the Philippines when the archipelago gained independence from the United States on July 4, 1946.