Philippines
Philippines (officially Republic of the Philippines) is a country in South-Eastern Asia, with its capital at Manila, and is home to roughly 115.8M people.
Its official languages are English, Filipino; the currency in circulation is Philippine peso (₱); people from here are called Filipino.
- »The Philippines comprises over 7,600 islands.
- »It has one of the largest populations of English speakers in the world.
- »The Puerto Princesa Subterranean River runs beneath a mountain to the sea.
Philippines is an archipelago, and that is the whole story of its silhouette: eleven landmasses are big enough to see at map scale, the largest holding only 36% of the territory, and 48 separate pieces in all.
Philippines shares no land border with anything, so every approach is by sea or air. The closest other territories on file are Taiwan (867 km), Brunei (1,477 km) and Malaysia (1,556 km), measured centre to centre.
Manila's Intramuros was the walled Spanish colonial core. Manila Bay was the site of a decisive naval battle in 1898 that ended Spanish rule.
289,877 km² (111,922 sq mi), 72nd largest of 198 countries and territories on file, almost exactly the size of Italy.
Population 115,843,670, 14th of 198 on file. That averages 400 per km² (1,035 per sq mi).
The only national flag flown differently in war: inverted, with the red band uppermost, to signal a state of war. The eight rays of the sun are the first provinces to revolt against Spain.