(2002 Metropolitan Manila est. pop. 10 million). Manila is the capital and the primary city of the Philippines. Manila proper (1995 population 1.6 million) is the Philippines' second-largest city after Quezon City (1995 population 2 million) in terms of population. Manila is located in southern Luzon Island on the Pasig River and Manila Bay. The Pasig River divides the city into north and south sections, with the old city, government buildings, and tourist facilities in the south and commerce, large slums, and Chinatown in the north. Present-day Manila is a major manufacturing, commercial, educational, cultural, and political center. It is a major port, the endpoint for the island's highways and railroads, and it has the nation's major airport. Major industries include processing plants for hemp and tobacco, pharmaceuticals, chemicals, steel, automobile assembly, and textiles. It also has over twenty colleges and universities and a reputation as the entertainment center of East and Southeast Asia with many restaurants, nightclubs, and theaters.
From the twelfth century, the territory that was to become Manila was a Muslim trading port with ties toBrunei and Melaka to the south and west. It was conquered by the Spanish colonizer Miguel Lopez de Legazpi (c. 1510–1572) in 1571; Legazpi made it the center of Spanish colonization of the Philippines. The name Manila is a Spanish corruption of Maynilad, meaning "where the nilad grows." (The nilad is a small white flower that used to flourish on Pasig riverbanks.)
The skyline of Quezon City, Manila, in 1998. (STEPHEN G. DONALDSON PHOTOGRAPHY)
Under the Spanish, Manila became the center of education, commerce, and religion; it was administered from distant Mexico City. The Spanish actually created two cities: the Intramuros, a walled city south of the river, where the Spanish lived, and an Extramuros, outside the walls, where the Malays and Chinese lived. For two centuries it was mainly a regional trade center for the flow of goods and wealth between China and Mexico. After the Spanish developed the Philippines as an agricultural colony early in the nineteenth century, Manila became the primary trade city both for intra-island and external trade. As the major trading center, it attracted the Spanish elite and became a cosmopolitan city and the home to Spain's major educational and religious organizations in Asia. It was this elite that played a major role in the Philippine revolution (1896–1898) and who worked with U.S. colonial officials to create an independent Philippines in 1946.
Manila was occupied by the Japanese from January 1942 until February 1945. It suffered much damage in both the Japanese assault and the American recapture, with the old city almost entirely destroyed. In 1948 Quezon City was made the national capital; Manila became the capital again in 1976. Since the end of World War II the city has been rebuilt and has experienced enormous growth.
Metropolitan Manila, or Metro Manila, is an administrative region composed of twelve cities (Quezon City, Manila, Caloocan, Makati, Pasig, Marikina, Mandaluyong, Pasay City, Muntinlupa, Paranaque, Las Pinas, and Valenzuela) and five municipalities (Taguig, Malabon, Navotas, San Juan, and Pateros). Metro Manila was created in 1975 by Ferdinand Marcos (1917–1989), the Philippines' leader from 1966 to 1986, to make coordination of regional services such as sewage disposal, garbage collection, housing, and water supply more efficient. Marcos appointed his wife, Imelda, the first governor of the district. Each of the cities and municipalities maintains its autonomy and elects its own mayor and council.
Further Reading
Reed, Robert R. (1978) Colonial Manila: The Context of Hispanic Urbanism and Process of Morphogenesis. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press.
Solon, Orville. (1996) "Global Influences on Recent Urbanization Trends in the Philippines." In Emerging World Cities in Pacific Asia, edited by Chen-lo Fu and Yue-Man Yeung. Tokyo: United Nations University, 268–285.
Von Naerssen, Ton, Michel Ligthart, and Flotilda N. Zapanta. (1996) "Managing Metropolitan Manila." In The Dynamics of Metropolitan Management in Southeast Asia, edited by Jürgen Rüland. Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 168–206.
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