Iloilo City

Iloilo City  is a highly urbanized city in the Philippines and the capital city of Iloilo province. It is the political center of the Western Visayas region, as well as the center of the Iloilo-Guimaras Metropolitan Area.

The history of Iloilo City dates back to the Spanish colonial period, starting out as a small and incoherent grouping of fishermen's hamlets from the Iloilo River by a large swamp which after 1855 became the "Queen City of the South", and later given the honorific title of "La Muy Noble Ciudad" (English: The Most Noble City) by the Queen Regent of Spain. At the turn of the twentieth century, Iloilo City was second to the primate city of Manila, with stores along Calle Real selling luxury products from all over the world, an agricultural experimental station established at La Paz in 1888, a school of Arts and Trades which opened in 1891, and a telephone network system operating in 1894.