Thursday, October 30, 2008

The Philippines (Filipino: Pilipinas), officially the Republic of the Philippines (Republika ng Pilipinas; RP), is an archipelagic nation located in Southeast Asia, with Manila as its capital city. The Philippine archipelago comprises 7,107 islands in the western Pacific Ocean, bordering countries such as Indonesia, Malaysia, Palau and the Republic of China, although it is the only Southeast Asian country to share no land borders with its neighbors. The Philippines is the world's 12th most populous country with a population approaching 87 million people.[3] Its national economy is the 47th largest in the world with a 2007 gross domestic product (GDP) of over US$161.07 billion.[3]Filipinos are mostly of Austronesian descent, but there are significant Chinese, Hispanic, Negrito, Arab, American and Indian minorities. There are more than 11 million overseas Filipinos worldwide, about 11% of the total population of the Philippines.The Philippines became a Spanish colony in the 16th century, and then a U.S. territory and commonwealth after the Spanish-American War. The Philippine Revolution was an attempt to gain independence from Spain, and later from the U.S. in the Philippine-American War. The Philippines ultimately gained its independence from the United States on July 4, 1946 after the Pacific War under the terms of the Tydings-McDuffie Act. The Philippines then became a fledging democracy until the authoritarian rule of Ferdinand Marcos led to his overthrow in the People Power Revolution of 1986. Political upheavals alternated with peaceful transition of power on the period that followed.Today, the Philippines has many affinities with the Western world, derived mainly from the cultures of Spain, Latin America, and the United States. Roman Catholicism became the predominant religion, although pre-Hispanic indigenous religious practices and Islam still exist. The two official languages of the Philippines are Filipino, which is based on Tagalog, and English.

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