Luzon ( loo-ZON, Tagalog: [luˈson]) is the largest and most populous island in the Philippines. Located in the northern portion of the Philippine archipelago, it is the economic and political center of the nation. The country's capital city, Manila, as well as Quezon City, the country's most populous city, are located on the island of Luzon. Luzon has a population of 64.3 million as of 2024; this constitutes more than half of the total population of the Philippines. Luzon is the 4th most populous island in the world. It is the 15th largest island in the world by area of land.
Luzon may also refer to one of the three primary island groups in the country. In this usage, it includes the Luzon Mainland, the Batanes and Babuyan groups of islands to the north, Polillo Islands to the east, and the outlying islands of Catanduanes, Marinduque and Mindoro, among others, to the south. The islands and provinces of Masbate, Palawan and Romblon are also included, although these three are sometimes grouped with another of the island groups, the Visayas.
The name Luzon is thought to derive from ᜎᜓᜐᜓᜅ᜔ lusong, a Tagalog word referring to a particular kind of large wooden mortar used in dehusking rice. A 2008 research paper by Eulito Bautista and Evelyn Javier provides an image of a lusong, explaining:
Traditional milling was accomplished in the 1900s by pounding the palay with a wooden pestle in a stone or wooden mortar called lusong. The first pounding takes off the hull and further pounding removes the bran but also breaks most grains. Further winnowing with a bamboo tray (bilao) separates the hull from the rice grains. This traditional hand-pounding chore, although very laborious and resulted in a lot of broken rice, required two to three skilled men and women to work harmoniously and was actually a form of socializing among young folks in the villages.
In old Latin, Italian, and Portuguese maps, the island is often called Luçonia or Luconia.
Luções, [luˈsõjʃ] (also Luzones in Spanish) was a demonym used by Portuguese sailors in Malaysia during the early 1500s, referring to the Kapampangan and Tagalog people who lived in Manila Bay, which was then called Lusong (Kapampangan: Lusung, Portuguese: Luçon), from which Luzon was also derived. The term was also used for Tagalog settlers in Southern Tagalog region, where they created intensive contact with the Kapampangans. Eventually, the term "Luzones" would refer to the settlers of Luzon island, and later on, would be exclusive to the peoples of Central Luzon.
Homo luzonensis fossils, found in Callao Cave on Luzon, represent a newly identified extinct archaic human species from at least 50,000 to 67,000 years ago.
Before 1000 CE, the Tagalog, Kapampangan, and Pangasinan peoples of south and central Luzon had established several major coastal polities, notably Maynila, Tondo and Namayan. The oldest known Philippine document, written in 900, is the Laguna Copperplate Inscription, which names places in and around Manila Bay and also mentions Medan, a place in Indonesia. These coastal Philippine kingdoms were thalassocracies, based on trade with neighboring Asian political entities and structured by leases between chiefs or lords (Datu) and paramount lords (Lakan) or Rajahs, by whom tributes were extracted and taxes were levied. These kingdoms were under the competing influence of Hinduism, Animism, or Islam. Before that, from 2500 - 2000 BCE, Kapampangans along with Sambal people and Hatang Kayi settled south Luzon; subsequently, from 1200 - 1000 BCE, the migrating Tagalog settlers from eastern Visayas or northeast Mindanao stayed in south Luzon and they made contact with the Kapampangans, Sambal people and the Hatang Kayi, of which contact with the Kapampangans was most intensive; after this, the original settlers moved northward: Kapampangans moved to modern Tondo, Navotas, and Central Luzon (modern Bulacan, Nueva Ecija, Aurora, Pampanga, south Tarlac, and east Bataan), and Sambals to the modern province of Zambales, in turn, displacing the Aetas.
There was also a Buddhist polity known as Ma-i or Maidh, described in Chinese and Bruneian records in the 10th century, although its location is still unknown and scholars are divided on whether it is in modern-day Bay, Laguna or Bulalacao, Mindoro.
According to sources at the time, the trade in large native Ruson-tsukuri (Japanese: 呂宋製), literally Luzon-made clay jars used for storing green tea and rice wine with Japan flourished in the 12th century, and local Tagalog, Kapampangan and Pangasinan potters had marked each jar with Baybayin letters denoting the particular urn used and the kiln the jars were manufactured in. Certain kilns were renowned over others; prices depended on the reputation of the kiln. Of this flourishing trade, the Burnay jars of Ilocos are the only large clay jar manufactured in Luzon today with origins from this time.
In the early 1300s the Chinese annals, Nanhai zhi, reported that Hindu Brunei invaded or administered Sarawak and Sabah as well as the Philippine kingdoms of Butuan, Sulu, and in Luzon: Ma-i (Mindoro) and Malilu 麻裏蘆 (present-day Manila); Shahuchong 沙胡重 (present-day Siocon or Zamboanga), Yachen 啞陳 Oton (Part of the Madja-as Kedatuan), and 文杜陵 Wenduling (present-day Mindanao), which would regain their independence at a later date.
In 1405, the Yongle Emperor appointed a Chinese governor of Luzon, Ko Ch'a-lao, during Zheng He's voyages. China also had vassals among the leaders in the archipelago. China attained ascendancy in trade with the area in Yongle's reign.Afterwards, some parts of Luzon were Islamized when the former Majapahit province of Poni broke free, converted to Islam, and imported Sharif Ali, a prince from Mecca who became the Sultan of Brunei, a nation that then expanded its realms from Borneo to the Philippines and set up the Kingdom of Maynila as its puppet-state. The invasion of Brunei spread Chinese royal descent like Ong Sum Ping's kin and Arab dynasties too into the Philippines like the clan of Sultan Sharif Ali. However, other Luzon kingdoms resisted Islam, like Pangasinan. It had remained a tributary state of China and was a largely Sinified kingdom, which maintained trade with Japan. The Polity of Cainta also existed as a fortified city-state, armed with walls and cannons. As written in the book of Dong-Xiyang kao (Chinese: 東西洋考), the Chinese Ming dynasty recorded that there was a "Kingdom of Luzon" that existed over the current island of Luzon.
Interactions with the Portuguese
The Portuguese were the first European explorers who recorded it in their charts as Luçonia or Luçon, calling the inhabitants Luções. Edmund Roberts, who visited Luzon in the early 19th century, wrote that Luzon was "discovered" in 1521. The Portuguese encountered Luzones, people from Luzon, as far away as the Malabar Coast in the Western part of India at South Asia serving as naval and mercenary muscle for the Portuguese armada in the wars against local Muslim kingdoms.
Portuguese and Spanish accounts from the early to mid 1500s state that the Kingdom of Maynila was the same as the Kingdom of Luzon that was mentioned in Ming Dynasty Records (from the Tagalog or Malay name Lusong and Kapampangan name Lusung), and whose citizens had been called "Luções".
Many people from Luzon were employed within Portuguese Malacca. For example, the spice magnate Regimo de Raja, based in Malacca, was highly influential and was appointed as Temenggong (Sea Lord)—a governor and chief general responsible for overseeing of maritime trade—by the Portuguese. As Temenggong, de Raja was also the head of an armada which traded and protected commerce in the Indian Ocean, the Strait of Malacca, the South China Sea, and the medieval maritime principalities of the Philippines. His father and wife carried on his maritime trading business after his death. Another important Malacca trader was Curia de Raja who also hailed from Luzon. The "surname" of "de Raja" or "diraja" could indicate that Regimo and Curia, and their families, were of noble or royal descent as the term is an abbreviation of Sanskrit adiraja.