Philippines

Philippines (Republic of the Philippines, Republika ng Pilipinas) 

The state in Southeast Asia. Consists of many islands in the Pacific Ocean between Indonesia and Taiwan. The Philippines is primarily famous for its picturesque beaches and coral reefs. On the islands there are numerous national parks and faunal reserves and forest reserves. Philippines have sufficient recreational resources, natural social and cultural. Nowadays the islands offer almost all kinds of tourism: informative, beach, extreme, sports, ecological.

General information

The location, grounds and landscape 

Philippines occupy the Philippine Islands, which are part of the Malay Archipelago. The largest of the more than 7,100 islands belonging to the Philippines - Luzon, Mindanao, Samar, Panay, Palawan, Negros, Mindoro, Leyte, Bohol, Cebu. The length of the Philippine archipelago from north to south is about 2000 km, from west to east - 900 km. In the west of the island it is washed by the South China Sea, in the east - by the Philippine Sea, in the south - by the sea of Sulawesi, northern Philippine island is separated from the island of Taiwan by the Strait Bashi.

The country's territory is 299 764 km². 

Mainly terrain or the islands is mountainous, the highest of them - Apo volcano (2954 m), which is located on the island of Mindanao. Ridges - volcanic origin because archipelago he is at the junction of the continental and oceanic lithospheric plates, included in the Pacific Ring of Fire, which is characterized by high seismic and volcanic activity. A distinctive feature of the Philippines appear trenches and volcanic islands. Off the coast of the Mindanao island is located one of the deepest in the world's oceans - Philippine Trench depths up to 10,830 meters.

Population: more than 105 million 700 thousand people.

Capital: Manila (with population 1.6 million people).

Biggest cities: Manila (composed conurbation in Metro-Manila), Quezon City.

Languages: official language - Tagalog (Pilipino), a significant portion of the population speaks English. Also common Spanish (3%), Spanish-Creole Chavacano Language (1%), Chinese.

Religion: Catholic religion professes 80.9% of the population, Protestants - 11.6%, Muslims - 5%, some Filipinos adheres to traditional beliefs.

Time zone: UTC +8.

Calling code: +63.

Currency: Philippine Peso (PHP), 1 Philippine peso = 100 centavos (cents). 1.00 USD ≅ 43.83 PHP, 1.00 EUR ≅ 59.64 PHP.

Credit card payment systems: Visa, MasterCard, American Express.