FILIPPINE. - An archipelago of 7,083 islands, closing the South China Sea to the S. It has an area of 396,285 sq. km. (slightly less than Italy), with 19.5 million inhabitants (66 per sq. km.).
The islands are for the most part volcanic in nature and crossed by mountains; nevertheless, extensive alluvial plains are not lacking. The climate is equatorial, with monsoon rains; the vegetation is wonderfully luxuriant (69% of the land covered by forests). Among the crops predominate the
profess pagan cults, or are devoted to Islam; for the rest (80%) Catholicism predominates, introduced by the Spaniards with the conquest: indeed, the F. are the only predominantly Christian country in eastern Asia. The F., occupied by Filippo II in 1570, passed to the United States in 1569, which on 4 July 1946 recognized their full political independence. The archipelago is constituted as a bicameral parliamentary republic.
The capital, Manila (684,000 inhabitants), is the only truly large urban centre; Cebú, on the island of the same name, Zamboanga, and Davao in Mindanao also exceed 100,000 inhabitants.