Philippine Flag Color Change

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, Republika sang Filipinas
* ibg, Republika nat Filipinas
* ilo, Republika ti Filipinas
* ivv, Republika nu Filipinas
* pam, Republika ning Filipinas
* krj, Republika kang Pilipinas
* mdh, Republika nu Pilipinas
* mrw, Republika a Pilipinas
* pag, Republika na Filipinas
* xsb, Republika nin Pilipinas
* sgd, Republika nan Pilipinas
* tgl, Republika ng Pilipinas
* tsg, Republika sin Pilipinas
* war, Republika han Pilipinas
* yka, Republika si Pilipinas

In the recognized optional languages of the Philippines:

* es, República de las Filipinas
* ar, جمهورية الفلبين, Jumhūriyyat al-Filibbīn
is an archipelagic country in Southeast Asia. It is situated in the western Pacific Ocean and consists of around 7,641 islands that are broadly categorized under three main geographical divisions from north to south: Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao. The Philippines is bounded by the South China Sea to the west, the Philippine Sea to the east, and the Celebes Sea to the southwest. It shares maritime borders with Taiwan to the north, Japan to the northeast, Palau to the east and southeast, Indonesia to the south, Malaysia to the southwest, Vietnam to the west, and China to the northwest. The Philippines covers an area of and, , it had a population of around 109 million people, making it the world's thirteenth-most populous country. The Philippines has diverse ethnicities and cultures throughout its islands. Manila is the country's capital, while the largest city is Quezon City; both lie within the urban area of Metro Manila.

Negritos, some of the archipelago's earliest inhabitants, were followed by successive waves of Austronesian peoples. Adoption of animism, Hinduism and Islam established island-kingdoms called Kedatuan, Rajahnates, and Sultanates. The arrival of Ferdinand Magellan, a Portuguese explorer leading a fleet for Spain, marked the beginning of Spanish colonization. In 1543, Spanish explorer named the archipelago ' in honor of Philip II of Spain. Spanish settlement through Mexico, beginning in 1565, led to the Philippines becoming ruled by the Spanish Empire for more than 300 years. During this time, Catholicism became the dominant religion, and Manila became the western hub of trans-Pacific trade. In 1896, the Philippine Revolution began, which then became entwined with the 1898 Spanish–American War. Spain ceded the territory to the United States, while Filipino revolutionaries declared the First Philippine Republic. The ensuing Philippine–American War ended with the United States establishing control over the territory, which they maintained until the Japanese invasion of the islands during World War II. Following liberation, the Philippines became independent in 1946. Since then, the unitary sovereign state has often had a tumultuous experience with democracy, which included the overthrow of a decades-long dictatorship by a nonviolent revolution.

The Philippines is an emerging market and a newly industrialized country whose economy is transitioning from being agriculture centered to services and manufacturing centered. It is a founding member of the United Nations, World Trade Organization, ASEAN, the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum, and the East Asia Summit. The location of the Philippines as an island country on the Pacific Ring of Fire that is close to the equator makes it prone to earthquakes and typhoons. The country has a variety of natural resources and is home to a globally significant level of biodiversity.

Etymology

Spanish explorer Ruy López de Villalobos, during his expedition in 1542, named the islands of Leyte and Samar "'" after Philip II of Spain, then the Prince of Asturias. Eventually the name "'" would be used to cover the archipelago's Spanish possessions. Before Spanish rule was established, other names such as ' (Islands of the West) and Ferdinand Magellan's name for the islands, ', were also used by the Spanish to refer to islands in the region.

During the Philippine Revolution, the Malolos Congress proclaimed the establishment of the ' or the '' Philippine Republic''. From the period of the Spanish–American War (1898) and the Philippine–American War (1899–1902) until the Commonwealth period (1935–1946), American colonial authorities referred to the country as ''The Philippine Islands'', a translation of the Spanish name. The United States began the process of changing the reference to the country from ''The Philippine Islands'' to ''The Philippines'', specifically when it was mentioned in the Philippine Autonomy Act or the Jones Law. The full official title, ''Republic of the Philippines'', was included in the 1935 constitution as the name of the future independent state, it is also mentioned in all succeeding constitutional revisions.

History

Prehistory (pre–900)

There is evidence of early hominins living in what is now the Philippines as early as 709,000 years ago. A small number of bones from Callao Cave potentially represent an otherwise unknown species, '' Homo luzonensis'', that lived around 50,000 to 67,000 years ago. The oldest modern human remains found on the islands are from the Tabon Caves of Palawan, U/Th-dated to 47,000 ± 11–10,000 years ago. The Tabon Man is presumably a Negrito, who were among the archipelago's earliest inhabitants, descendants of the first human migrations out of Africa via the coastal route along southern Asia to the now sunken landmasses of Sundaland and Sahul.

The first Austronesians reached the Philippines from Taiwan at around 2200 BC, settling the Batanes Islands and northern Luzon. From there, they rapidly spread southwards to the rest of the islands of the Philippines and Southeast Asia. This population assimilated with the existing Negritos resulting in the modern