Masbate
Masbate is an island province of the Philippines archipelago.
It lies between the southeastern tip of Luzon in the north, Leyte to the southeast, Cebu in the south and Panay to the southwest.
The province consists of the island group total of 39 islands and has an area of 4151.78 km ² and has 834,650 inhabitants (as of 1 May 2010). Largest city is Masbate City with 85 227 inhabitants. The coastline of the province is about 968 km.
The largest inhabited islands in the province are:
- Masbate ( 3296 km ², 435 200 inhabitants) in the south
- Burias ( 417.4 km ², 76,400 inhabitants) in the northwest
- Ticao (332 km ², 72,900 inhabitants) in the northeast
Other inhabited islands are Naro- Peña and Iceland, which are in the south of the province in the Visayan Sea.
The main industries of the province are corn and rice growing, fishing and cattle breeding.
Gold is mined four kilometers southwest of the city on the island of Masbate Aroroy. The mine belongs since 2007 to the Australian CGA Mining Limited and is currently the largest such project in the country.
Administrative divisions
The Masbate province is politically into 20 boroughs (English: Municipalities; Filipino: Bayan ) and divided a city. These in turn are subdivided into a total of 550 barangays.
The province is divided into three electoral districts for the House of Representatives of the Philippines.
Cities
- Masbate City
Municipalities
- Aroroy
- Baleno
- Balud
- Batuan
- Cataingan
- Cawayan
- Claveria
- Dimasalang
- Esperanza
- Mandaon
- Milagros
- Mobo
- Monreal
- Palanas
- Pio V. Corpuz
- Placer
- San Fernando
- San Jacinto
- San Pascual
- Uson