Babuyan Island (sometimes called Babuyan Claro or ''Curuga Mabuyan'', the clear-sighted) is the highest and northernmost

island An island (or isle) is an isolated piece of habitat that is surrounded by a dramatically different habitat, such as water. Very small islands such as emergent land features on atolls can be called islets, skerries, cays or keys. An island ...

in the

Babuyan Islands The Babuyan Islands ( ), also known as the Babuyan Group of Islands, is an archipelago in the Philippines, located in the Luzon Strait north of the main island of Luzon and south of Taiwan via Bashi Channel to Luzon Strait. The archipelago cons ...

Luzon Strait The Luzon Strait (Tagalog: ''Kipot ng Luzon'', ) is the strait between Taiwan and Luzon island of the Philippines. The strait thereby connects the Philippine Sea to the South China Sea in the western Pacific Ocean. This body of water is an im ...

north of

Luzon Island Luzon (; ) is the largest and most populous island in the Philippines. Located in the northern portion of the Philippines archipelago, it is the economic and political center of the nation, being home to the country's capital city, Manila, ...

in the

Philippines The Philippines (; fil, Pilipinas, links=no), officially the Republic of the Philippines ( fil, Republika ng Pilipinas, links=no), * bik, Republika kan Filipinas * ceb, Republika sa Pilipinas * cbk, República de Filipinas * hil, Republ ...

and also directly south of

Taiwan Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia, at the junction of the East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, with the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the northwest, Japan to the nort ...

via

Bashi Channel The Bashi Channel is a waterway between Y'Ami Island of the Philippines and Orchid Island of Taiwan. It is a part of the Luzon Strait in the Pacific Ocean. It is characterized by windy storms during the rainy period, June to December. The Bash ...

. The whole island makes up the

barangay A barangay (; abbreviated as Brgy. or Bgy.), historically referred to as barrio (abbreviated as Bo.), is the smallest administrative division in the Philippines and is the native Filipino term for a village, district, or ward. In metropolita ...

of ''Babuyan Claro'', that constitute the

municipality A municipality is usually a single administrative division having corporate status and powers of self-government or jurisdiction as granted by national and regional laws to which it is subordinate. The term ''municipality'' may also mean the go ...

of Calayan in

Cagayan Cagayan ( ), officially the Province of Cagayan ( ilo, Probinsia ti Cagayan; ibg, Provinsiya na Cagayan; itv, Provinsiya ya Cagayan; fil, Lalawigan ng Cagayan), is a province in the Philippines located in the Cagayan Valley region, covering ...

province A province is almost always an administrative division within a country or state. The term derives from the ancient Roman '' provincia'', which was the major territorial and administrative unit of the Roman Empire's territorial possessions ou ...

. The

volcanic A volcano is a rupture in the crust of a planetary-mass object, such as Earth, that allows hot lava, volcanic ash, and gases to escape from a magma chamber below the surface. On Earth, volcanoes are most often found where tectonic plates a ...

has a population of 1,910 as of the 2020 census, up from 1,423 in 2010.

History

The language of Babuyan Island is sometimes classified as a dialect of Ivatan. Babuyan was depopulated by the Spanish and only repopulated at the end of the 19th century with families from

Batan Island Batan Island ( ) is the main island of Batanes, an archipelagic province in the Philippines. It is the second largest of the Batanes Islands, the northernmost group of islands in the country. Four of the six municipalities of Batanes are loca ...

, most of them speakers of one of the Ivatan dialects.

Geography

Babuyan Island lies about south-southwestward of

Balintang Islands Balintang Islands are a small group of rocky islands in the middle of Balintang Channel, in Luzon Strait, northern Philippines. The islands are almost equidistant to both Babuyan Island, Cagayan, which lies about to the southwest, and Sabtang I ...

, and about northward of

Cape Engaño Lighthouse Cape Engaño Lighthouse, also known as Faro de Cabo Engaño (Filipino: Parola ng Tangos Engaño), is a historic lighthouse located at Cape Engaño on Palaui Island in the town of Santa Ana, the province of Cagayan, Philippines. Located at the ...

. The nearly triangular island is about long in a northeast and southwest direction, with an average width of about . The island seems to be steep all around. A reef projects from its western point. The south point is steep and rocky with a black, rocky,

sugarloaf A sugarloaf was the usual form in which refined sugar was produced and sold until the late 19th century, when granulated and cube sugars were introduced. A tall cone with a rounded top was the end product of a process in which dark molasses, a r ...

islet, called ''Pan de Azucar'', close inshore.

Volcanoes

Near the western point of the island is

Smith Volcano Smith Volcano, also known as Mount Babuyan, is a cinder cone on Babuyan Island, the northernmost of the Babuyan group of islands on Luzon Strait, north of the main island of Luzon in the Philippines. The mountain is one of the active volcano ...

, also known as Mount Babuyan, about high. In the middle of the island and east-southeastward from Smith is Babuyan Claro, also known as Mount Pangasun, about high, between which the mountains are much lower, so that from a considerable distance eastward it appears as a round mountain with a detached

hillock A hillock or knoll is a small hill,The Free Dictionary
"hillock" entry, retrieved December 18, 2007 ...

northward. There are three other volcanic cones with no historic eruptions on the island: Cayonan, Dionisio and Naydi.

History

Geography

Volcanoes

See also