Manila is bewildering at first sight: it's enormous, chaotic, noisy and sometimes tough, but also intense, warm and layered with history like few capitals in Asia. Founded by the Spanish in 1571 on a Muslim settlement on the banks of the Pasig River, for three and a half centuries it was the 'Pearl of the Orient', the Asian end of the Spanish empire and the point where the Manila Galleon linked Asia with the Americas. That Hispanic heritage — unique in Southeast Asia — now coexists with the American imprint of the 20th century, the modernity of Makati's skyscrapers and the overflowing vitality of one of the most populous metropolises on the planet.
For most travellers, Manila is the gateway to the Philippines and an almost unavoidable stopover before flying on to the beaches of Palawan, the Visayas or the mountains of the north. But those who give it a chance discover a city with soul: the walled city of Intramuros, where the footsteps of the conquistadors and of national hero José Rizal still echo; the baroque churches that are World Heritage Sites; the Binondo Chinatown, the oldest in the world, with its incredible food; the free national museums that hold the great works of Filipino art; and those orange sunsets over the bay that are the city's trademark.
This guide brings order to Manila's chaos with a practical, warm eye: what to see in Intramuros and how to explore it, how to get around while dodging the legendary traffic, where to eat well and cheaply, how much admission costs and how to make the most of a short stopover. Manila rewards the curious, open-minded traveller: those who look beyond the traffic and the disorder find a wonderfully rich history, people who are among the friendliest and most smiling in Asia, and a fascinating crossroads between East and West.
Although the fortified settlement of Maynila already existed on the banks of the Pasig River, ruled by Muslim rajahs linked to the Sultanate of Brunei, the Manila we know was born in 1571, when the conquistador Miguel López de Legazpi took it and founded it as the Spanish capital of the Philippine Islands, named in honour of King Philip II. For 333 years Manila was the heart of Spanish rule in Asia and the Asian port of the famous Manila Galleon, which for 250 years crossed the Pacific to Acapulco carrying Chinese silk and porcelain bound for the Americas and Mexican silver on the way back. The walled city of Intramuros was the core of that colonial and religious power. In the 19th century, Manila was the cradle of the nationalist movement: it was here that the hero José Rizal wrote and was executed by firing squad in 1896. In 1898, after the Spanish-American War, Spain ceded the Philippines to the United States, which governed it until 1946 (with the brutal interlude of the Japanese occupation during the Second World War, when the 1945 Battle of Manila razed the city and killed more than 100.000 civilians). Since independence, Manila has grown into today's megacity. The full story is on our history page.
Read the full history ↓The great north of the Philippines: the chaotic capital, Manila, the age-old rice terraces of the Ifugao, the villages of the Cordillera and colonial Vigan, untouched by time.
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Origins, formation and what the sources say.
Long before the Spanish arrived, a city was already thriving at the mouth of the Pasig River. It was called Maynila, and its name probably comes from 'may nilad', a Tagalog expression referring to a white-flowered plant (the nilad) that grew along the banks of the river and the bay. This was no ordinary fishing village: it was a fortified settlement, a prosperous trading centre that controlled river and sea traffic in the area.
By the 16th century, Maynila was ruled by a Muslim elite related to the powerful Sultanate of Brunei, which had spread its influence and Islam across much of the archipelago. At its head were chiefs bearing the title of rajah: Rajah Sulayman, Rajah Matanda and, on the north bank of the river in Tondo, Rajah Lakandula. They traded with China, Borneo, Malacca and the rest of Southeast Asia, exchanging gold, wax, cotton and slaves for porcelain, silk and luxury goods. On the point where the Pasig meets the bay stood a fort of logs and stakes, protected by bronze cannons, guarding the entrance to the river.
That indigenous, Muslim, trading Manila is the one the conquistadors found when they sailed up the bay. Its history was almost buried under three and a half centuries of Spanish rule, but its name —turned into 'Manila'— and its strategic location survived everything. The city we know today was built, quite literally, on the ashes of that river kingdom.
In 1565, the conquistador Miguel López de Legazpi had established the first permanent Spanish settlement in the Philippines, in Cebu, closing the circle opened by Ferdinand Magellan, who had reached (and died in) the archipelago in 1521. The islands were named 'Filipinas' in honour of King Philip II. But Legazpi soon set his sights on Maynila, whose position on the bay and the river made it ideal as a capital.
In 1570 a Spanish expedition led by Martín de Goiti clashed with the forces of Rajah Sulayman; there was fighting and old Maynila was left in flames. The following year, in 1571, Legazpi himself arrived, negotiated with and subdued the local chiefs, and on 24 June 1571 formally proclaimed the city of Manila capital of the Spanish Philippines, granting it the title of 'Distinguished and Ever Loyal City'. The Spanish citadel began to rise on the site of the old indigenous fort.
That is how Intramuros, the walled city, was born: a stone enclosure surrounded by walls, bastions and moats, built over the following decades with forced indigenous and Chinese labour. Inside it were concentrated political power, the military garrison and, above all, the Church: the cathedral, convents of Augustinians, Dominicans, Franciscans and Jesuits, and the first universities in Asia, such as the University of Santo Tomas (1611). Intramuros was the 'Spanish' Manila; outside the walls, in districts like Binondo —the oldest Chinatown in the world, founded in 1594— lived the Chinese, the mestizos and the indigenous population. That colonial Manila became the heart of the Spanish empire in Asia.
For two and a half centuries, Manila was much more than a colonial capital: it was one of the hinges of the first truly global trade in history. Between 1565 and 1815, the famous Manila Galleon (also called 'the Nao de China') crossed the Pacific Ocean once or twice a year, linking Manila with the port of Acapulco, in New Spain (today's Mexico).
The system was as simple as it was colossal. Chinese junks arrived in Manila loaded with silk, porcelain, ivory, spices, jade and lacquerware from China and the rest of Asia. All of it was loaded onto huge galleons that set sail for Acapulco, where the goods were sold and distributed across the Americas and, from there, on to Europe. On the way back, the galleons carried mainly one thing from the Americas: Mexican and Peruvian silver, the currency China wanted to trade in. Manila was the point where American silver turned into Chinese silk. For generations, the city's life and fortunes depended on the galleon's arrival: when the ship was wrecked —and several sank with fabulous cargoes—, Manila's entire economy fell into crisis.
That trans-Pacific traffic made Manila a cosmopolitan city, but also a vulnerable one. It was attacked by Chinese pirates and by Dutch and English privateers, and in 1762 it was even occupied for almost two years by British troops during the Seven Years' War, before being returned to Spain. The Chinese community (the 'sangleyes'), essential to trade and the crafts, was tolerated and persecuted by turns, with periodic massacres and expulsions. The end of the galleon trade and, decades later, the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869 reshaped commerce, but the mark of those centuries —the mixing of peoples, the food, Catholicism, the very layout of the city— was left on Manila for good.
In the 19th century, Manila was where Filipino national consciousness was born. The city was growing; it had printing presses, universities and an educated mestizo class that began to look critically at Spanish rule and, above all, at the enormous power of the religious orders. From that environment emerged José Rizal (1861-1896): doctor, novelist, poet and polyglot, educated in Manila and in Europe, whose novels 'Noli me tángere' and 'El filibusterismo' —written in Spanish— exposed the abuses of the colonial system in stark terms and awakened national pride.
Rizal did not favour armed revolution but peaceful reform, yet his ideas lit the fuse. In 1896 the Philippine Revolution broke out, driven by Andrés Bonifacio's secret society, the Katipunan. The Spanish authorities blamed Rizal for inspiring the uprising and arrested him; after a military trial, he was executed by firing squad on the morning of 30 December 1896 on the open ground of Bagumbayan, by the bay, today's Rizal Park. Far from snuffing out the rebellion, his execution made him a martyr and national hero, an enduring symbol of the fight for freedom.
The Revolution was still under way when the Spanish-American War broke out in 1898. Commodore George Dewey's US fleet destroyed the Spanish squadron at the Battle of Manila Bay on 1 May 1898. Defeated on several fronts, Spain signed the Treaty of Paris that same year and ceded the Philippines (along with Cuba, Puerto Rico and Guam) to the United States for twenty million dollars. The Filipinos, who had declared independence in June 1898, found themselves with a new master: the dream of freedom was postponed, and a bloody Philippine-American War (1899-1902) followed, costing hundreds of thousands of lives.
Under US rule (1898-1946), Manila was transformed. The Americans laid out avenues, put up neoclassical buildings, promoted an ambitious urban plan by the architect Daniel Burnham, expanded public education in English and modernised the port and services. The city enjoyed a few decades of growth and lively cultural life, with Intramuros still standing as a reminder of its Hispanic past. In 1935 the Commonwealth of the Philippines was established, a self-governing administration on the road to the promised independence.
It all collapsed with the Second World War. In December 1941, after the attack on Pearl Harbor, Japan invaded the Philippines; Manila was declared an 'open city' but was occupied anyway, and years of very harsh Japanese rule followed. The greatest tragedy came at the end: between February and March 1945, as US troops advanced to liberate the city, the Battle of Manila was fought, one of the most devastating urban battles of the entire Pacific War. Entrenched Japanese forces resisted house by house and, as they fell back, committed mass atrocities against civilians. The result was apocalyptic: much of Manila was reduced to rubble, Intramuros was almost completely razed (only San Agustin Church was left standing) and more than 100,000 civilians died. After Warsaw, Manila was one of the most heavily destroyed capitals of the Second World War.
The country finally gained independence on 4 July 1946, but Manila bore the wound of its destruction. Rebuilding was fast and often chaotic: the city spread without planning, absorbed waves of migrants from the countryside and merged with neighbouring cities to form today's vast Metro Manila. Restoration of Intramuros only began in the 1970s, in an effort to recover the lost colonial memory.
21st-century Manila is one of the world's great megacities: Metro Manila is home to some 13-14 million people in a patchwork of adjoining cities, and it is the economic, political and cultural engine of the Philippines. Extreme realities sit side by side: the skyscrapers, malls and financial districts of Makati and Bonifacio Global City, with their luxury and nightlife, and the packed working-class neighbourhoods, the legendary traffic, the pollution and the inequality of a city growing without limits.
At the same time, Manila proudly holds on to its memory. Intramuros, partly restored, still tells the country's Hispanic story; Rizal Park keeps the cult of the national hero alive; the national museums, now free, display the masterpieces of Filipino art, starting with Juan Luna's 'Spoliarium'; and Binondo's Chinatown buzzes with the same commercial energy as four centuries ago. Religion is still central: the Philippines is one of the most Catholic countries in the world, and in Manila processions, huge open-air masses and devotions such as that of the Black Nazarene of Quiapo draw millions of people.
Manila can feel overwhelming, tough and exhausting to the unprepared visitor. But it is also a city of enormous human warmth, with some of the friendliest, most smiling people in Asia, a cuisine that blends Malay, Chinese, Spanish and American influences like nowhere else, and a history that makes it unique: the place where East and West have been meeting for four and a half centuries. With all its contrasts, it remains the beating heart of the Philippines.
