Regions of the Philippines

In the Philippines, regions (Tagalog: rehiyon, ISO 3166-2:PH) are administrative divisions that serve primarily to organize the provinces (lalawigan) of the country for administrative convenience. Currently, the archipelagic republic of the Philippines is divided into 17 regions. Most government offices are established by region instead of individual provincial offices, usually (but not 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.

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 reorganization of some Mindanao regions.
• August 21, 1975: Region IX divided into Sub-Region IX-A' and Sub-Region IX-B. Minor reorganization 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 reorganize the Mindanao regions but the reorganization never happened (possibly due to lack of government funds).
• February 23, 1995: Region XIII (Caraga) created and minor reorganization of some Mindanao regions.
• 1997: Minor reorganization of some Mindanao regions.
• September 19, 2001: Most Mindanao regions reorganized 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: The E.O. 429 of May 23, 2005 transferring Palawan from MIMAROPA to Western Visayas was later held in abeyance by Administrative Order #129.

As of June 2010, the Philippines consists of 17 administrative regions. Some of the region designations include numeric components, some do not.^[1] These 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 regions CALABARZON, MIMAROPA, and SOCCSKSARGEN are capitalized because they are acronyms that stand for their component provinces or cities.^[2]

Note that insofar as the Judiciary is concerned, specifically the first and second level courts, the country is divided into judicial regions as provided by Batas Pambansa Bilang 129. The coverage of these judicial regions generally coincides with that of the administrative regions in the Executive branch of government.

Luzon

Map	Region (short name)	Regional center	Component local government units
	National Capital Region (NCR; Metro Manila)	Manila	Caloocan City[3] Las Piñas City[3] Makati City[3] Malabon City[3] Mandaluyong City[3] Manila[3] Marikina City[3] Muntinlupa City[3] Navotas City[3] Parañaque City[3] Pasay City[3] Pasig City[3] Pateros[4] Quezon City[3] San Juan City[3] Taguig City[3] Valenzuela City[3]
	Cordillera Administrative Region (CAR)	Baguio City	Abra Apayao Baguio City[3] Benguet Ifugao Kalinga Mountain Province
	Ilocos Region (Region I)	San Fernando City, La Union	Ilocos Norte Ilocos Sur La Union Pangasinan Dagupan City[5]
	Cagayan Valley (Region II)	Tuguegarao City	Batanes Cagayan Isabela Santiago City[5] Nueva Vizcaya Quirino
	Central Luzon (Region III)	San Fernando City, Pampanga	Aurora Bataan Bulacan Nueva Ecija Pampanga Tarlac Zambales Angeles City
	CALABARZON (Region IV-A)	Calamba City, Laguna	Batangas Cavite Quezon Rizal Laguna Lucena City
	MIMAROPA (Region IV-B)	Calapan City	Marinduque Occidental Mindoro Oriental Mindoro Palawan Puerto Princesa City[3] Romblon
	Bicol Region (Region V)	Legazpi City	Albay Camarines Norte Camarines Sur Catanduanes Masbate Sorsogon Naga City

Visayas

Map	Region (short name)	Regional center	Component local government units
	Western Visayas (Region VI)	Iloilo City	Aklan Antique Capiz Guimaras Iloilo Iloilo City[3] Negros Occidental Bacolod City[3]
	Central Visayas (Region VII)	Cebu City	Bohol Cebu Cebu City[3] Lapu-Lapu City[3] Mandaue City[3] Negros Oriental Siquijor
	Eastern Visayas (Region VIII)	Tacloban	Biliran Eastern Samar Leyte Northern Samar Ormoc City[5] Samar Southern Leyte Tacloban City[3]

Mindanao

Map	Region (short name)	Regional center	Component local government units
	Zamboanga Peninsula (Region IX)	Zamboanga City	Isabela City[6] Zamboanga City[3] Zamboanga del Norte Zamboanga del Sur Zamboanga Sibugay
	Northern Mindanao (Region X)	Cagayan de Oro	Bukidnon Cagayan de Oro City[3] Camiguin Iligan City[3] Lanao del Norte Misamis Occidental Misamis Oriental
	Davao Region (Region XI)	Davao City	Compostela Valley Davao City[3] Davao del Norte Davao del Sur Davao Oriental
	SOCCSKSARGEN (Region XII)	Koronadal	Cotabato Cotabato City[5] General Santos City[3] Sarangani South Cotabato Sultan Kudarat
	Caraga Region (Region XIII)	Butuan	Agusan del Norte Agusan del Sur Butuan City[3] Dinagat Islands Surigao del Norte Surigao del Sur
	Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM)	Cotabato City	Basilan (excluding Isabela City) Lanao del Sur Maguindanao Sulu Tawi-Tawi