page_title: Iloilo City
section_title: Architecture
hierarchical_section_title: Iloilo City / Cityscape / Architecture
caption_attribution_description: Español: Parroquia de Sta. Ana
context_page_description: Iloilo City, officially the City of Iloilo, is a 1st class highly urbanized city on Panay Island in Western Visayas, Philippines. It is the capital city of the province of Iloilo where it is geographically situated but, in terms of government and administration, it is politically independent. In addition, it is the center of the Iloilo-Guimaras Metropolitan Area, as well as the regional center and primate city of the Western Visayas region. In the 2015 census, Iloilo City had a population of 447,992 inhabitants, with a 1.02% population annual growth rate. For the metropolitan area, the total population is 946,146 inhabitants.
  Iloilo City is a conglomeration of former towns, which are now the geo-political districts consisting of: Villa Arevalo, Iloilo City Proper, Jaro, La Paz, Mandurriao and Molo. The district of Lapuz, a former part of La Paz, was declared a separate district in 2008.
  It was founded in 1566 when the Spaniards established a settlement area between the towns of Oton and the city's present district of La Villa Rica de Arevalo as the second Spanish colonial center after Cebu in the Philippine islands.
context_section_description: Iloilo City's urban planning and architecture reflect the plans of the Spanish and the American colonial administrations. Since Iloilo City is a conglomeration of towns, the districts have their own plazas which are surrounded by establishments of political and ecclesiastical influence, such as churches and old administrative halls. In 1930, Juan M. Arellano of the Bureau of Public Works designed the schematic plan for Iloilo City, which was influenced by Ebenezer Howard's "Garden City."
  The Spanish colonial influence is strongly imprinted not only in Iloilo's history and cultural background but also the architectural perspective.
  The city's regaled status during the Spanish colonial era until the turn of the 20th century is implied during by the sugar boom with ubiquitous stately mansions and edifices built by the old money Ilonggo Sugar Baron and elite families which contrast to the city's economic importance as a second city next to Manila during the said era in the Philippines.  The city's other moniker – ‘’City of Mansions’’  is likewise implied because Iloilo holds 240 mansions in which 30 of it are grand mansions built during the Spanish and American colonial eras.
  The ravaged ‘’Fuerte de San Pedro’’ (Fort San Pedro) is Iloilo’s ground zero as there was no Iloilo City back in the 1600s. As a fortress, Fort San Pedro was built solely by the Spaniards to protect Iloilo from the marauding pirates and privateers. The fort is the second Spanish built fort after the one in Cebu (also Fort San Pedro) in the Philippines and Asia. The foundation of the Fort San Pedro was substantial to the Spanish Empire’s stronghold as Panay Island with Iloilo as their second colonial center established through the Iloilo precursor towns of Oton (1566) and La Villa Rica de Arevalo (1581). Oton which was founded as early as 1566 but formally established in 1572 was the actual second seat of Spanish colonial powers but due to pirate attacks, they moved the capital eastward and established the ‘’La Villa Rica de Arevalo’’.
  The town of La Villa Rica de Arevalo holds some of the fine example of Spanish built mansions like the mansion of the Spanish Governor General, but were destroyed when the pirates ransacked and destroyed the town. It was in the said frequent events of pirate attacks that the Spaniards moved finally the capital further eastward in the mouth of ‘’Rio de Iloilo’’ (Iloilo River) which is flanked and protected by Guimaras Island across it.
  It was in the said establishment of the city on the mouth of Iloilo River that as years go by, the city flourished to its heights especially in the economic and regal importance in the Spanish and American eras. La Villa Rica de Arevalo (Arevalo) is the first Spanish named town in the Philippine islands. It is also in Arevalo that the third oldest image of Holy Child Jesus (Señor Santo Niño) in the Philippines was brought by the Spaniards. Notable present day structures that are repositories that attest to the town's former glory as a Spanish precursor town of Iloilo is the mansion of Balay Camiña na Bato and the Convento de Arevalo.
  During the Spanish and American eras, the city developed its own unique charm that exudes a typical European city in the east which differed it from other cities just like the old Manila in the Philippines. It was in the said eras that architectural perspective of Iloilo flourished with European styled edifices and stately mansions was built which stands of Iloilo's once economic and political importance in its heyday.
  Calle Real (Spanish for Royal Street) which stretches from Plazoleta Gay up to Plaza Alfonso XII (Plaza Libertad) is Iloilo's Escolta (a heritage street in Manila) lined with commercial edifices that possesses European designs. Calle Real is Iloilo's old Central Business District and is considered as the second most preserved heritage business district in the Philippines. The street during the Iloilo's economic heyday during the late 19th and early 20th centuries when the ‘’Puerto de Iloilo’’ (Port of Iloilo) was opened to the international trade i
caption: Iglesia de Molo (St. Anne Parish), the first Gothic and feminist church outside Manila.
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