Philippines Population 2012
The Philippines population in 2012 will be 103,775,002 in July, according to the CIA World Factbook.
This is considerably higher than the estimates provided by the Philippines National Statistics Office. Based on extrapolating the 2000 census results, they predicted that there would be 94,013,200 in 2010 and, based on a growth rate of around 1.8 million people per year, this would lead to an assumed population in 2012 of around 97 million people.
According to both of these sets of figures, the Philippines is the 12th largest country in the world today, sandwiched between Mexico and Vietnam.
Largest cities in the Philippines
The Philippines’ largest city is Quezon City, which contains 2,679,450 people. It forms a part of the wider Metropolitan Manila area, which is comprised of 16 cities and has an overall population of 11,553,427 people. To make things even more complicated, the entire Greater Manila urban area spills out beyond the boundaries of Metro Manila and is reported to contain around 25 million people – a quarter of the Philippines entire population.
Other major cities include Manila itself (pop: 1,660,714), Caloocan (pop: 1,378,856) and Davao City (1,363,337). Of these, only Davao City is outside of the Metropolitan Manila area.
Ethnicity, Religion and Language in the Philippines
Unsurprisingly for a country that is made up of many islands, the Philippines contains a diverse range of ethnic groups. The latest data available comes from the 2000 census, which reported the following breakdown:
- Tagalog, 28.1%
- Cebuano, 13.1%
- Ilocano, 9%
- Bisaya, 7.6%
- Hiligaynon, 7.5%
- Bikol, 6%
- Waray, 3.4%
- Other, 25.3%
Religion in the Philippines is heavily influenced by its history as a part of the Spanish Empire. As well as naming the country after its King (Philip II), Spain also exported its religion, and today around 80% of the country’s citizens are Roman Catholic Christians. Of the remaining people, 10% are from other Christian denominations and around 5% are Muslim, mainly based in the South West in the country.
Although the official language of the Philippines was, for many years, Spanish, the legacy of the American administration during the first half of the 20th century has been that its two official languages today are English and Filipino (derived from Tagalog).
Filipinos Overseas
As well as the approximately 100 million Filipinos living in the Philippines itself, there are estimated to be around 10 million Filipino people living abroad. Many have moved abroad temporarily to find work, but others have settled abroad permanently.
Given its close ties with America, it is not surprising that the United States is home to the largest group of overseas Filipinos – around 3.4 million. There are also large Filipino populations in the Middle East (1.1 million in Saudi Arabia, 600,000 in the UAE and 260,000 in Qatar), Malaysia (900,000), Japan (350,000) and Australia (330,000). Interestingly, only 241,000 Filipinos live in Spain, the Philippines old imperial master.
