Place:Naga City, Camarines Sur, Bicol, Philippines

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the text in this section is copied from an article in Wikipedia

Naga, officially known as the City of Naga (Central Bikol: Siyudad nin Naga; Rinconada Bikol: Syudad ka Naga; ) or the Pilgrim City of Naga, is a 1st class independent component city in the Bicol Region of the Philippines. According to the 2020 census, it has a population of 209,170 people.

The town was established in 1575 by order of Spanish Governor-General Francisco de Sande. The city, then named Ciudad de Nueva Cáceres (New Cáceres City), was one of the Spanish royal cities in the Spanish East Indies, along with Manila, Cebu, and Iloilo, the third oldest to be exact.

Geographically and statistically classified, as well as legislatively represented within Camarines Sur, but administratively independent of the provincial government, Naga is the Bicol Region's trade, business,^[1] religious, cultural, industrial, commercial, medical, educational,^[2] and financial center.

Naga is known as the "Queen City of Bicol" due to the historical significance of Naga in the Bicol Region; as the "Heart of Bicol", due to its central location on the Bicol Peninsula; and as the "Pilgrim City," as Naga is also the destination of one of the largest Marian pilgrimages in Asia to the shrine of Our Lady of Peñafrancia, an image that is one of the country's most popular objects of devotion. Naga is also known as "One of the Seven Golden Cities of the Sun" as stated by Nick Joaquín.

The city is the seat of the metropolitan Archdiocese of Cáceres, which includes all the suffragan sees of Bicol.

It is one of the two Philippine cities named Naga, the other being in Cebu.

History

the text in this section is copied from an article in Wikipedia

Precolonial era

The Bicolandia was closely allied with the Kedatuan of Madja-as Confederation, which was located southeast on Panay Island. According to the epic Maragtas, two datus and their followers, who followed Datu Puti, arrived at Taal Lake, with one group later settling around Laguna de Bay, and another group pushing southward into the Bicol Peninsula, placing the Bicolanos between people from Luzon and people from the Visayas. An ancient tomb preserved among the Bicolanos, discovered and examined by anthropologists during the 1920s, refers to some of the same deities and personages mentioned in the Maragtas.

Spanish colonial period

In 1573, on his second expedition to this region, the conquistador Juan de Salcedo landed in a settlement named Naga in the native languages, because of the abundance of narra trees (naga in Bikol).

In 1575, Captain Pedro de Chávez, the commander of the garrison left behind by Salcedo, founded on the site of the present business centre (across the river from the original Naga) a Spanish city which he named La Ciudad de Cáceres, in honor of Francisco de Sande, the Governor-General and a native of Cáceres in Spain. It was by this name that it was identified in the papal bull of August 14, 1595, which established the see of Cáceres, together with Cebú and Nueva Segovia, and made it the seat of the new bishopric subject to the Archdiocese of Manila. Nueva Caceres was settled by around 100 Spaniards from Europe and reinforced by migrations from Mexico.

In time, the Spanish city and the native village merged into one community and became popularly known as "Nueva Cáceres", to distinguish it from its namesake in Spain. It had a city government as prescribed by Spanish law, with an ayuntamiento and cabildo of its own. At the beginning of the 17th century, there were only five other ciudades in the Philippines. Nueva Cáceres remained the capital of the Ambos Camarines provinces and later of Camarines Sur province until the formal creation of the independent chartered city of Naga under a sovereign Philippines.

For hundreds of years during the Spanish colonial era, Naga grew to become the center of trade, education, and culture, and the seat of ecclesiastical jurisdiction in Bicol.

American colonial period

With the advent of American rule, the city was reduced to a municipality. In 1919, it lost its Spanish name and became officially known as Naga.

World War II and Japanese occupation

Naga came under Japanese occupation on December 18, 1941, following the Japanese invasion of Legaspi a few days earlier.

In 1945, toward the end of World War II, combined U.S. and Philippine Commonwealth troops—of the United States Army, Philippine Commonwealth Army, Philippine Constabulary, as well as Bicolano guerrilla resistance groups—liberated Naga from Imperial Japanese troops.

Independent Philippines

After Naga was liberated from the Japanese, Naga began rebuilding. Having suffered only a few casualties, Naga was able to rebuild quickly after the war.

Cityhood

After many petitions, Naga became a city on June 18, 1948, when it acquired its present city charter; and its city government was inaugurated on December 15 of the same year by virtue of Republic Act No. 305.

source: Family History Library Catalog

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