Regions of the Philippines

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.

List of regions

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.

Luzon

Map	Region (short name)	Regional center
National Capital Region (NCR; Metro Manila)	Manila	No provinces
Cordillera Administrative Region (CAR)	Baguio City
Ilocos Region (Region I)	San Fernando City
Cagayan Valley (Region II)	Tuguegarao City
Central Luzon (Region III)	San Fernando City
CALABARZON (Region IV-A)	Calamba City
MIMARO (Region IV-B)	Calapan City
Bicol Region (Region V)	Legazpi City

Visayas

Map	Region (short name)	Regional center	Provinces
Western Visayas (Region VI)	Iloilo City
Central Visayas (Region VII)	Cebu City
Eastern Visayas (Region VIII)	Tacloban City

Mindanao

Map	Region (short name)	Regional center	Provinces
Zamboanga Peninsula (Region IX)	Pagadian City
Northern Mindanao (Region X)	Cagayan de Oro
Davao Region (Region XI)	Davao City
SOCCSKSARGEN (Region XII)	Koronadal City
Caraga (Region XIII)	Butuan City
Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM)	Cotabato City

History

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.

References