Category: Cebu

Cebu City, city, Cebu Island, south-central Philippines. Located on Cebu Island’s eastern coast, it is protected by offshore Mactan Island and by the inland Cordillera Central. It is one of the country’s largest cities and is a bustling port. Its harbour is provided by the sheltered strait between Mactan Island and the coast.

The country’s oldest settlement, it is also one of its most historic and retains much of the flavour of its long Spanish heritage. A thriving port occupied the site when Ferdinand Magellan, the Portuguese navigator and explorer, landed there on April 7, 1521. He sealed a blood compact with Humabon, the chief of Cebu, but was killed later by Chief Lapulapu of nearby Mactan Island. On April 27, 1565, Miguel López de Legazpi and the friar Andrés de Urdaneta arrived on Cebu and founded the first Spanish settlement and Catholic mission in the Philippine archipelago. For six years, until Legazpi’s removal to Manila, Cebu was the Spanish colonial capital. It remained the primary Spanish bastion in the southern part of the Philippines.