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Mindoro is the seventh largest and eighth-most populous island in the Philippines. With a total land area of 10,571 km2 ( 4,082 sq.mi ), it has a population of 1,408,454, as of the 2020 census. It is located off the southwestern coast of Luzon and northeast of Palawan. Mindoro is divided into two provinces: Occidental Mindoro and Oriental Mindoro. Calapan is the only city on the island, while San Jose is the largest settlement on the island with a total population of 143,430 inhabitants as of 2015. The southern coast of Mindoro forms the northeastern extremum of the Sulu Sea.<ref>C.Michael Hogan. 2011. Sulu Sea</ref> Mount Halcon is the highest point on the island, standing at Template:Convert above sea level located in Oriental Mindoro. Mount Baco is the island's second highest mountain with an elevation of Template:Convert, located in the province of Occidental Mindoro.
EtymologyEdit
The name Mindoro was likely a corruption of the native name Minolo. Domingo Navarette ('Tratados...', 1676) wrote "The island which the natives call Minolo is named Mindoro by the Spaniards..." (trans. by Blair and Robertson).<ref name="BRV38">Template:Cite book</ref>
HistoryEdit
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In precolonial times, the island has been called Ma-i or Mait by Han Chinese traders. Indigenous groups are called Mangyans. The Spaniards called the place Mina de Oro ("gold mine"), from where the island derives the current form of its current name. According to the late historian William Henry Scott, an entry in the official history of the Song Dynasty for the year 972 mentions Ma-i as a state which traded with China. Other Chinese records referring to Ma-i or Mindoro appear in the following years.<ref name=scott>Template:Cite book</ref>
The products that Mindoro traders exchanged with the Chinese included “beeswax, cotton, true pearls, tortoiseshell, medicinal betelnuts and yu-ta [jute?] cloth” for Chinese porcelain, trade gold, iron pots, lead, copper, colored glass beads and iron needles.<ref name=scott/>
The island was invaded and conquered by the Sultanate of Brunei and housed Moro settlements<ref>Prof. Cesar A. Majul attests to the existence of Bornean settlements in Manila and construes that some of the rulers found by the Spaniards were themselves Borneans. He in fact cites that as late as 1574, the Borneans and their allies, the Sulus, continued to extract tribute from the natives of Mindoro, thus this practice must have been going on for quite some time. Cf. Muslims in the Philippines, (Quezon City: University of the Philippines Press, 1973), pp. 72.,78; ·</ref> before the Spanish invaded and Christianized the population. Afterward, the area was depopulated due to wars between the Spaniards and Moros from Mindanao who sought to enslave the Hispanized people and re-Islamize the island.<ref name=":1">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>Majul, op. cit., p. 108.</ref> Consequently, most of the population fled to nearby Batangas and the once-rich towns of Mindoro fell into ruin.<ref name=":1" /> In the seventeenth century, Giovanni Francesco Gemelli Careri visited the island.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
By the end of the 1700s, Mindoro had 3,165 native families and four Spanish Filipino families.<ref name="Estadismo1">ESTADISMO DE LAS ISLAS FILIPINAS TOMO PRIMERO By Joaquín Martínez de Zúñiga (Original Spanish)</ref>Template:Rp<ref name="Estadismo2">ESTADISMO DE LAS ISLAS FILIPINAS TOMO SEGUNDO By Joaquín Martínez de Zúñiga (Original Spanish)</ref>Template:Rp In 1898, Mindoro joined in the Philippine Revolution against Spain due to the influx of rebels settling into the island from Cavite and Bataan. Local patriotism died down however during the American occupation of the Philippines and the Japanese era.
The island was the location of the Battle of Mindoro in World War II.
Nevertheless, upon Philippine independence from the United States in 1946, the area recovered and from 1920 to 1950, the island was a single province with Calapan as the provincial capital. In 1950, it was partitioned into its present-day provinces, Occidental Mindoro and Oriental Mindoro,<ref name="ChanRobles-RA505">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> following a referendum.
GeographyEdit
Mindoro is the seventh (7th) largest island in the Philippines. It is divided into the provinces of Occidental Mindoro and Oriental Mindoro. The Mindoro Mountain Range is the largest and longest mountain range in the island, with a total length of Template:Convert north-south and Template:Convert width east–west. Mount Halcon, at Template:Convert, is the island’s highest point and is located in Oriental Mindoro.
Mindoro is a center of biodiversity in the Philippines, a megadiverse country, and has a large number of species found nowhere else on the archipelago. Mindoro additionally hosts its own ecoregion, the Mindoro rain forests, separate from neighboring Luzon. Mindoro's biodiversity and isolation is a result of the island not being connected to the rest of the Philippines during the Pleistocene; during this time, most of the Philippine islands were connected to each other during lower sea levels; however, the deeper channels surrounding Mindoro led to it being isolated from the rest of the Philippines during this time.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
TopographyEdit
Mindoro Mountain Range List of highest Peaks by elevation.
- Mount Halcon Template:Convert
- Mount Baco Template:Convert
- Mount Wood Template:Convert
- Mount Sinclair Template:Convert
- Mount Patrick Template:Convert
- Mount Indie Template:Convert
- Mount Merril Template:Convert
- Mount Calavite Template:Convert
- Mount Tallulah Template:Convert
- Babuy Peak Template:Convert
- Mount Iglit Template:Convert
- Mount Roosevelt Template:Convert
- Mount Burburungan Template:Convert
- Mount Malasimbo Template:Convert
- Mount Balatic Template:Convert
- Mount Talipanan Template:Convert
- Mt. Abra de Ilog Template:Convert
- Mount Mearns Template:Convert
- Mount Alinyaban Template:Convert
River SystemEdit
List of major river in Mindoro by length.
- Bucayao River Template:Convert
- Lumintao River Template:Convert
- Bongabong River Template:Convert
- Busuanga River Template:Convert
- Mantangcob River Template:Convert
- Balingkawing River Template:Convert
- Amnay River Template:Convert
- Mongpong River Template:Convert
- Mag-asawang Tubig Template:Convert
- Pagbahan River Template:Convert
- Arigoy River Template:Convert
- Lantuyan River Template:Convert
- Pandurucan River Template:Convert
- Pameyas River Template:Convert
- Santa Cruz River Template:Convert
- Anahawin River Template:Convert
- Abra de Ilog River Template:Convert
- Naujan River Template:Convert
- Calapan River Template:Convert
CultureEdit
LanguagesEdit
The principal language in Mindoro is Tagalog, often the Batangas dialect due to its geographical proximity to Batangas and Batangueño residents on the island (the reason for making Mindoro part of Southern Tagalog),<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> with some parts more greatly influenced by the native Mangyan and Visayan languages also spoken on the island. The former is endemic to Mindoro and has dialects, while Ilocano, Bicolano, Hiligaynon, Karay-a, Cuyonon and some foreign languages – e.g., English, Hokkien (the predominant Chinese language of Chinese Filipinos), to a lesser extent, Spanish.
The following indigenous languages (all of them being part of the Philippine branch of the Malayo-Polynesian languages family, like also like Ilocano, Bicolano, and the nationally designated Filipino) are spoken in Mindoro:
- Northern Mindoro languages – 16,000 speakers
- Southern Mindoro languages – 30,000 speakers
- Visayan languages
- Ratagnon language – 310 speakers
ReligionEdit
The predominant religion on the island is Christianity. The religion of the indigenous Mangyan population is animism. Though they are into animism as a principal religion, the Catholic Church in some of Mindoro's parts is also active, so are a few independent subdivisions, like Iglesia ni Cristo and Philippine Independent Church, as well as the Baptist Church.
EconomyEdit
The economy of Mindoro is largely based on agriculture. Products consist of a wide variety of fruits, such as citrus, bananas, lanzones, rambutan and coconuts, grains (rice and corn), sugarcane, peanuts, fish (catfish, milkfish and tilapia), livestock and poultry. Logging and the mining of marble and copper also thrive. Only 5% of the original forest remains as a result of extensive logging, prevalent agricultural practices, and population growth.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
Tourism is a lucrative business as well, with locations such as Apo Reef National Park, Lubang Island, Puerto Galera, Sabang Beach and Mount Halcon. Puerto Galera's beaches are the island's most-known tourist attraction and are widely visited.
An important aspect of the economy in Mindoro is mining, mostly by outside companies owned by foreign countries. While the foreign countries make most of the money from these mines, the Philippine government still receives some economic and financial benefit from allowing them to mine on their lands. These companies include Pitkin Petroleum, a US-based company which is looking for nickel, oil, and gas in Mindoro,<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Crew Development Corporation, a Canada-based corporation mining nickel and other precious metals,<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> and Intex, a Norwegian-based company operating the Mindoro Nickel Project. This project is supposed to last 15 years and should produce over 100 million tons of ore by the end of the project.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Unfortunately, while the mines might be profitable for the national government, they have caused problems to the environment and the indigenous tribes living in Mindoro.
EnvironmentEdit
Mining in Mindoro poses a significant risk to the island's environment. Local and international mining interests have disregarded the island's ecology to gain access to the rich tungsten veins that exist below the surface.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Intex, a Norwegian Mining Company attempted to begin prospecting for tungsten deposits, but was halted by a regional environmental protection ordinance.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Small scale, legal and illegal, environmentally degrading mining operations still persist throughout the island due to a lack of enforcement by the local police.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
FaunaEdit
Mindoro is also home to the tamaraw or Mindoro dwarf buffalo (Bubalus mindorensis), which is endemic to the island. The tamaraw is a bovine related to the water buffalo (carabao) and is an endangered species.
ReferencesEdit
BibliographyEdit
- C.Michael Hogan. 2011. Sulu Sea. Encyclopedia of Earth. Eds. P.Saundry & C.J.Cleveland. Washington DC
External linksEdit
- Template:Commons category-inline
- Template:OSM relation
- "Map of Mindoro" showing towns and major mountain tops
- Mindoro Tourists and Exploration
