page_title: Camotes Islands
section_title: Spanish conquistadores
hierarchical_section_title: Camotes Islands / History / Spanish conquistadores
caption_attribution_description: English: Page includes account of travel to and stay at Camotes Islands
context_page_description: Camotes Islands is a group of islands in the Camotes Sea, Philippines. Combined area is 236.36 kilometres. The island group is located east of Cebu Island, southwest of Leyte Island, and north of Bohol Island. It is 34 nautical miles from Cebu City and is part of Cebu. According to the 2015 census, it has a population of 102,996. Population has grown 34.3% since 1990, equivalent to an annual growth rate of 1.19%.
  Nearest landfall, from north end of Ponson island to southern Leyte, is about 7.2 kilometres. From Consuelo port to Danao is 32 kilometres as the crow flies. From south of Pacijan to Bohol is about 47 kilometres.
  Sometimes known as the "Lost Horizon of the south", within recent years Camotes has seen increased visitors and tourism and a growing expatriate community. Apart from natural attractions on land, there is also a score of dive sites around the islands.
context_section_description: The islands were first mentioned by Antonio Pigafetta, one of the survivors on Ferdinand Magellan's fateful voyage, as they waited off the islands for several days before going on to Cebu in the first week of April 1521: 
  De mazaua agatighan sonno vinti leghe partendone de gatighan al ponente il re de mazaua no ne puote seguir por che lo espectassemo circa tres ysolle cioe polo ticobon et pozon.
  There is a distance of twenty leguas from Mazaua to Gatighan.  We set out westward from Gatighan, but the king could not follow us [closely] and consequently we awaited him near three islands, namely Polo, Ticobon and Pozon.
  
  Writing in 1582, Miguel de Loarca stated:
  ysla de camotes. Por la pᵗᵉ del leste de la ysla de çubu esten dos ysletas pequeñas qe ternan de box cada vna çinco leguas que llaman ysletas de camotes ternan entrambas como treçientos yndios son proprios de la çiudad de çubu es gte pobre aunqe tienen alguna çera, y muçho Pescado son las poblaçones pequeñas de siete y a ocho casas estan apartadas de la ysla de çubu como tres leguas y siete de la çiudad— Island of Camotes. East of the island of Çubu are two small islets, each about five leagues in circumference.  They are called the islets of Camotes. The two are inhabited by about three hundred Indians, and are under the jurisdiction of the city of Çubu. The people are poor, although they possess some wax and a great quantity of fish. The villages are small, consisting of only seven or eight houses each. These islets are about three leagues from the island of Çubu, and seven from the city of that name.
  He also wrote:
  "todos son de vna manera tienen tambien gallinas y puercos y algunas cabras frisoles y vnas Rayçes como batatas de sancto domingo qe llaman camotes
  All are provided with fowls, swine, a few goats, beans, and a kind of root resembling the potatoes of Sancto Domingo, called by the natives camotes."
caption: Pigafetta's Journal of Magellan's Voyage (in French)[c]:77
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