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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 1,430,921, as of the 2024 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 and largest settlement on the island with a total population of 148,558 inhabitants as of 2024. The southern coast of Kristine Mindoro forms the northeastern extremum of the Sulu Sea.C.Michael Hogan. 2011. Sulu Sea Mount Halcon is the highest point on the island, standing at above sea level located in Oriental Mindoro. Mount Baco is the island's second highest mountain with an elevation of , located in the province of Occidental Mindoro.
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.
The island was invaded and conquered by the Sultanate of Brunei and housed Moro settlementsProf. 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; · 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.Majul, op. cit., p. 108. Consequently, most of the population fled to nearby Batangas and the once-rich towns of Mindoro fell into ruin. In the seventeenth century, Giovanni Francesco Gemelli Careri visited the island.
By the end of the 1700s, Mindoro had 3,165 native families and four Spanish Filipino families. ESTADISMO DE LAS ISLAS FILIPINAS TOMO PRIMERO By Joaquín Martínez de Zúñiga (Original Spanish) ESTADISMO DE LAS ISLAS FILIPINAS TOMO SEGUNDO By Joaquín Martínez de Zúñiga (Original Spanish) 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 Pacific War.
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, following a referendum.
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.
The following indigenous languages (all of them being part of the Philippine branch of the Malayo-Polynesian languages family, as well as Ilocano, Bicolano, and the nationally designated Filipino) are spoken in Mindoro:
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, Crew Development Corporation, a Canada-based corporation mining nickel and other precious metals, 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. 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.
Mindoro Deer (Rusa marianna bandaranus) is a subspecies of the Philippine Deer in the family of Cervidae.
Mindoro warty pig (Sus oliveri) is a species of wild pig in the family of Suidae.
Geography
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 north-south and width east–west. Mount Halcon, at , is the island’s highest point and is located in Oriental Mindoro.
Topography
Mindoro Mountain Range List of highest Peaks by elevation.
River System
List of major river in Mindoro by length.
Culture
Languages
The principal language in Mindoro is Tagalog language, often the Batangas Tagalog due to its geographical proximity to Batangas and Batangueño residents on the island (the reason for making Mindoro part of Southern Tagalog), with some parts more greatly influenced by the native Mangyan language and Visayan languages also spoken on the island. The former is endemic to Mindoro and has dialects, while Ilocano language, Bicolano, Hiligaynon, Karay-a language, Cuyonon language and some foreign languages – e.g., English, Hokkien (the predominant Chinese language of ), to a lesser extent, Spanish.
Religion
The predominant religion on the island is Christianity. The religion of the indigenous Mangyan peoples 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.
Economy
The economy of Mindoro is largely based on agriculture. Products consist of a wide variety of fruits, such as citrus, , lanzones, rambutan and , grains (rice and maize), sugarcane, , fish (catfish, milkfish and tilapia), livestock and poultry. Logging and the mining of marble and copper also thrived. Only 5% of the original forest remains as a result of extensive logging, prevalent agricultural practices, and population growth.
Environment
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. Intex Resources, a Norwegian Mining Company attempted to begin prospecting for tungsten deposits, but was halted by a regional environmental protection ordinance. Small scale, legal and illegal, environmentally degrading mining operations still persist throughout the island due to a lack of enforcement by the local police.
Fauna
Mindoro dwarf buffalo or Tamaraw Bubalus mindorensis is a species of water buffalo endemic to the island and is an endangered species.
Bibliography
External links
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