Municipalities of the Philippines

Map of the Philippines highlighting the location of municipalities (town center coordinates)

The municipalities in the Philippines total 1,488 in all. A municipality is created by an Act of Congress subject to the approval of the majority of the affected electorate in a plebiscite. The requisites for its creation are the following:

  • an average annual income of at least 2.5 million Philippine pesos (₱2.5 M) for the last two (2) consecutive years;
  • a population of at least 25,000; and
  • a contiguous territory of at least 50 square kilometers.

The elected officials of the municipal government are the Mayor who is the chief executive, the Vice-Mayor, and the Sangguniang Bayan members. There are also appointive officials in charge of the various offices in the municipal government.

List of municipalities

details

Statistics

Based on the 2020 census, the municipalities with the highest population are Rodriguez (443,954), Taytay (386,451), and Cainta (376,933), all three in the province of Rizal. Those with the lowest population are Kalayaan in Palawan (193), Uyugan in Batanes (1,380), and Ivana also in Batanes (1,407).

By land area, the largest are Sablayan in Occidental Mindoro (2,188.80 km2 or 845.10 sq mi), La Paz in Agusan del Sur (1,481.12 km2 or 571.86 sq mi), and San Vicente in Palawan (1,462.94 km2 or 564.84 sq mi), while the smallest are Camaligan in Camarines Sur (4.68 km2 or 1.81 sq mi), Limasawa in Southern Leyte (6.98 km2 or 2.69 sq mi), and Rosario in Cavite (7.61 km2 or 2.94 sq mi).

Furthermore, the municipalities with the highest number of barangays are Miagao in Iloilo (119), Lopez in Quezon (95), Leon in Iloilo (85), and San Joaquin in Iloilo (85). Those with the least are Adams in Ilocos Norte (1), Kalayaan in Palawan (1), and Turtle Islands in Tawi-Tawi (2).

Sources

  1. The Local Government Code of the Philippines
  2. Data on population and land area are from the Philippine Statistics Authority
  3. Maps utilize OpenStreetMap data available under the Open Data Commons Open Database License.
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