Manila, officially the City of Manila, is the capital and second-most populous city of the Philippines after Quezon City. According to the 2024 census, it has a population of 1,902,590 people. Located on the eastern shore of Manila Bay on the island of Luzon, it is classified as a highly urbanized city. With 44,935 inhabitants per square kilometer (116,380/sq mi), Manila is one of the world's most densely populated cities proper.
By 1258, a Tagalog-fortified polity called Maynila existed on the site of modern Manila. On June 24, 1571, after the defeat of the polity's last indigenous ruler, Rajah Sulayman, in the Battle of Bangkusay, Spanish conquistador Miguel López de Legazpi began constructing the walled fortification of Intramuros on the ruins of an older settlement from whose name the Spanish and English name Manila derives. Manila was used as the capital of the captaincy general of the Spanish East Indies, which included the Marianas, Guam, and other islands, and was controlled and administered for the Spanish crown by Mexico City in the Viceroyalty of New Spain. Manila is considered to be part of the world's original set of global cities because its commercial networks were the first to extend across the Pacific Ocean and connect Asia with the Spanish Americas through the galleon trade. This marked the first time an uninterrupted chain of trade routes circling the planet had been established.
Under the American occupation, Manila became the first chartered city in the country, designated by Philippine Commission Act No. 183 on July 31, 1901. It became autonomous with the passage of Republic Act No. 409, "The Revised Charter of the City of Manila", on June 18, 1949.
In modern times, the name "Manila" is commonly used to refer to the entire metropolitan area, the greater metropolitan area, and the city proper. Metro Manila, the officially defined metropolitan area, is the capital region of the Philippines, and includes the much larger Quezon City and the Makati Central Business District.
The Pasig River flows through the middle of Manila, dividing it into northern and southern sections. The city comprises 16 administrative districts and is divided into six political districts for the purposes of representation in the Congress of the Philippines and the election of city council members. In 2018, the Globalization and World Cities Research Network listed Manila as an "Alpha-" global city, and ranked it seventh in economic performance globally and second regionally, while the Global Financial Centres Index ranks Manila 79th in the world. Manila is also the world's second most natural disaster-exposed capital city after Tokyo. Furthermore, land subsidence and sea-level rise driven by climate change are challenges that the city will face in the future.
The name Manila is derived from the Filipino term Maynilà, which is commonly interpreted as either "where indigo plants are abundant" (may nilà) or "where nilad plants are abundant" (may nilad).
Nilà is derived from the Sanskrit word nīla (नील), which refers to indigo dye and, by extension, to several plant species from which this natural dye can be extracted. The name Maynilà was probably bestowed because of the indigo-yielding plants that grew in the area surrounding the settlement rather than because it was known as a settlement that traded in indigo dye. Indigo dye extraction only became an important economic activity in the area in the 18th century, several hundred years after Maynila settlement was founded and named. Maynilà eventually underwent a process of Hispanicization and adopted the Spanish name Manila.
This etymology arose from the observation that, in Tagalog, nilad or nilar refers to a shrub-like tree (Scyphiphora hydrophyllacea; formerly Ixora manila Blanco) that grows in or near mangrove swamps. However, Baumgartner explained that it is unlikely that native Tagalog speakers would completely drop the final consonant /d/ in nilad to arrive at the present form Maynilà. As an example, nearby Bacoor retains the final consonant of the old Tagalog word bakoód ("elevated piece of land"), even in old Spanish renderings of the placename (e.g., Vacol, Bacor). Linguist Vic Romero contends that it is actually not impossible for final consonant /d/ to shift into a glottal stop such as in mapalad to pinagpalà and hangád to hangà.
The earliest known reference to this etymology was in the third volume of John Ray's Historia Plantarum in 1704, originally lifted from the Herbarium aliarumque Stirpium in Insula Luzone Philippinarum primaria nascentium... by Fr. Georg Josef Kamel, and he mentioned that:
Nilad arbor mediocris, rarissimi recta, ligno folido, et compacto ut Molavin, ubi abundant Mangle, locum vocant Manglar, ita ubi nilad, Maynilad, unde corrupte Manila (Nilad is an average tree, very rare straight, leafy wood, and compact like Molavin, where Mangle abounds, the place is called Manglar, so where nilad (abounds), Maynilad, whence the corruption Manila).
Examples of later adoption of this etymology include the name of a local utility company, Maynilad Water Services, alternative name of Manila City Hall, Maharnilad, and the name of underpass close to it, Lagusnilad (meaning "Nilad Pass").
The earliest evidence of human life around present-day Manila is the nearby Angono Petroglyphs, which are dated to around 3000 BC. Negritos, the aboriginal inhabitants of the Philippines, lived across the island of Luzon, where Manila is located, before Malayo-Polynesians arrived and assimilated them.
Maynila, along with Tondo, were active trade partners with the Song and Yuan dynasties of China and flourished during the mid to later period of the Ming dynasty. According to a Japanese encyclopedia Wakan Sansai Zue, Luzon or Lusong (Maynila) was referred to as a "kingdom" south of Taiwan.
During the 12th century, then-Hindu Brunei called "Pon-i", as reported in the Chinese annals Nanhai zhi, invaded Malilu 麻裏蘆 (claimed by various scholars to be the present-day Manila) as it also administered Sarawak and Sabah, as well as the Philippine kingdoms of: Butuan, Sulu, Ma-i (Mindoro or Laguna), Shahuchong 沙胡重 (present-day Zamboanga), Yachen 啞陳 (Oton), and 文杜陵 Wenduling (present-day Mindanao, Bintulu or Mindoro). In the 13th century, Manila consisted of a fortified settlement and trading quarter on the shore of the Pasig River. Upon the conversion of Brunei from Hinduism to Islam, Manila also followed, as the Bruneian royal family also intermarried with Manila's royal family, as can be gleaned by the personage of Rajah Matanda who was simultaneously king of Manila while being a great-grandson of Sultan Bolkiah of Brunei.
On June 24, 1571, conquistador Miguel López de Legazpi arrived in Manila and declared it a territory of New Spain, establishing a city council in what is now Intramuros district. Inspired by the Reconquista, he took advantage of a territorial conflict between Hindu Tondo and Islamic Manila to justify expelling or converting Bruneian Muslim colonists who supported Manila while his Mexican grandson Juan de Salcedo had a romantic relationship with Kandarapa, a princess of Tondo. López de Legazpi had the local royalty executed or exiled after the failure of the Conspiracy of the Maharlikas, a plot in which an alliance of datus, rajahs, Japanese merchants, and the Sultanate of Brunei would band together to execute the Spaniards, along with their Latin American recruits and Visayan allies.
The victorious Spaniards made Manila the capital of the Spanish East Indies and of the Philippines, which their empire would control for the next three centuries. The city was founded by several European Spaniards and Mestizo Mexicans and even was garrisoned by 400 Native American Tlaxcalans who accompanied Salcedo from Cebu and were given pensions. In 1574, Manila was besieged by the Chinese pirate Lim Hong, who was thwarted by local inhabitants. Upon Spanish settlement, Manila was immediately made, by papal decree, a suffragan of the Archdiocese of Mexico. By royal decree of Philip II of Spain, Manila was put under the spiritual patronage of Saint Pudentiana and Our Lady of Guidance. After the conquest of Manila from its Muslim aristocracy; the Spanish-Mexican conquistadors were awarded encomiendas with Esteban Rodríguez de Figueroa holding an encomienda near Manila; tribute figures not recorded. The other one is Juan Maldonado, another Mexican an early encomendero; of whom limited data survives. In the meantime, the Muslim aristocracy of Manila converted or fled, one such was Datuk Manila who fled to the Sultanate of Malacca where he became a Wali or Islamic Saint.