page_title: Davao City
section_title: American period
hierarchical_section_title: Davao City / History / American period
caption_attribution_description: Davao City Hall, Philippines
context_page_description: Davao City, officially the City of Davao, is a 1st class highly urbanized city in the island of Mindanao, Philippines. The city has a total land area of 2,443.61 km², making it the largest city in the Philippines in terms of land area. It is the third-most populous city in the Philippines after Quezon City and Manila, and the most populous in Mindanao. As of the 2015 census the city had a population of 1,632,991.
  It is geographically situated in the province of Davao del Sur and grouped under the province by the Philippine Statistics Authority, but the city is governed and administered independently from it. The city is divided into three congressional districts, which are subdivided into 11 administrative districts with a total of 182 barangays.
  Davao City is the center of Metro Davao, the third-most populous metropolitan area in the Philippines. The city serves as the main trade, commerce, and industry hub of Mindanao, and the regional center of Davao Region. Davao is home to Mount Apo, the highest mountain in the Philippines. The city is also nicknamed the "Durian Capital of the Philippines".
context_section_description: At the very instant the Americans began their administration of the town in 1900, economic opportunities quickly arose as huge swathes of its areas, mainly lush forests and fertile grasslands, were declared open for agricultural investment. A result of this, foreign businessmen especially Japanese entrepreneurs started settling the region, staking their claims on the vast lands of Davao and turned them into huge plantations of coconut and banana products. In just a short period, Davao changed from a small and sparsely-inhabited town into a bustling economic center serving mainly the Davao Gulf region, heavily populated alongside natives by tens of thousands of settlers and economic migrants from Luzon, Visayas and Japan. All of this led the Port of Davao to be established and opened the same year, in order to facilitate the international export of agricultural products from Davao.
  Davao was incorporated as a part of Moro Province from 1903 to 1914. When the province was dissolved in 1914, it led to the establishment of Davao Province, with Davao town as its provincial capital. What is now the city's Legislative Council Building served as the provincial capitol. It was built in 1926, the same year the Davao Municipal Hall, now the City Hall, was constructed.
  Because of the rapidly increasing progress of the town, on March 16, 1936, congressman Romualdo Quimpo from Davao filed Bill 609 (passed as Commonwealth Act 51), creating the City of Davao from the town of Davao and the municipal district of Guianga. The bill called for the appointment of local officials by the president. By that time, the new city was already mostly populated with Japanese businessmen and settlers who then became its locals. Davao was inaugurated as a charter city on 16 October 1936 by President Manuel L. Quezon; the charter came into effect on 1 March 1937. It was one of the first two towns in Mindanao to be converted into a city, the other being Zamboanga.
caption: Davao City Hall was established in 1926 as the Municipal Hall when it was still a town.
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