Demographic features of the Philippines include population density, ethnicity, education level, health of the populace, economic status, religious affiliations, and other aspects of the population. The Philippines annualized population growth rate between the years 2020 and 2024 was 0.80%. According to the 2024 census, the population of the Philippines is 112,729,484. The first census in the Philippines was held in the year 1591 which counted 667,612 people.

The majority of Filipinos are lowland Austronesians, while the Aetas (Negritos), as well as other highland groups form a minority. The indigenous population is related to the indigenous populations of the Malay Archipelago. Some ethnic groups that have been in the Philippines for centuries before Spanish and American colonial rule have assimilated or intermixed. This is the case with the Sama-Bajau ethnicity which possess Austroasiatic ancestry and the Blaan people who possess Papuan ancestry, while ancient immigration integrated some Indian ancestry to the precolonial Indianized kingdoms in the islands. Meanwhile, Spanish era censuses from the 1700s, record that 2.33% of the population were Mexicans and 5% were mixed Spanish-Filipinos or pure Spanish-Filipinos. Records from the Philippine government shows that pure Chinese were 1.35 million and mixed Chinese-Filipinos composed about 20% of the population. Up to 750,000 people from the United States of America also live in the Philippines.US-PH alliance 'stronger than ever'—envoy By Raymund Antonio (Manila Bulletin)"Beyond the economic and defense partnership, the US and Philippines maintain "meaningful people-to-people ties," which Carlson described is "the foundation of everything we do together." Some four million Filipinos and Filipino-Americans call the United States their home, while more than 750,000 US citizens are currently living in the Philippines, she noted." They represent 0.75% of the total population, while an additional 250,000 about 0.25% of Filipinos are Amerasians of half Filipino and half American descent.Mixed Marriage...Interreligious, Interracial, Interethnic By Dr. Robert H. Schram Thus making the percentage of the population having either full or partial American descent amount to 1% of the Philippines' demographics. Other ethnic groups include the Arabs who intermixed with Muslim Filipinos and the Japanese who form parts of the population.

The most commonly spoken indigenous languages are Tagalog and Cebuano, with 23.8 million (45 million speakers as Filipino) and 16 million speakers, respectively. Nine other indigenous languages have at least one million native speakers: Ilocano, Hiligaynon, Waray, Bicolano, Kapampangan, Pangasinan, Maranao, Maguindanao, and Tausug. One or more of these are spoken as a mother tongue by more than 93% of the population. Filipino and English are the official languages, but there are between 120 and 170 distinct indigenous Philippine languages (depending on expert classifications).

Population history

1591

The first census in the Philippines was in 1591, based on tributes collected. The books counted the total population of the Spanish Philippines as 667,612 people; by 1591 most of the Philippines were under Spanish rule.JP Sanger, Henry Gannett, Victor Olmsted. "Census of the Philippine Islands: Taken Under the Direction of the Philippine Commission in the Year 1903." Volume 1. United States Bureau of the Census, Washington, 1905. Pages 420-422.The Unlucky Country: The Republic of the Philippines in the 21st Century By Duncan Alexander McKenzie (page xii)Demography Philippine Yearbook 2011 Page 3 20,000 were Chinese migrant traders, at different times: around 15,600 individuals were Latino soldier-colonists who were cumulatively sent from Peru and Mexico and they were shipped to the Philippines annually,Stephanie Mawson, 'Between Loyalty and Disobedience: The Limits of Spanish Domination in the Seventeenth Century Pacific' (Univ. of Sydney M.Phil. thesis, 2014), appendix 3. 3,000 were Japanese residents, and 600 were pure Spaniards from Europe. There was a large but unknown number of South Asian Filipinos, as the majority of the slaves imported into the archipelago were from Bengal and India,Peasants, Servants, and Sojourners: Itinerant Asians in Colonial New Spain, 1571-1720 By Furlong, Matthew J. "Slaves purchased by the indigenous elites, Spanish and Hokkiens of the colony seemed drawn most often from South Asia, particularly Bengal and South India, and less so, from other sources, such as East Africa, Brunei, Makassar, and Java..." Chapter 2 "Rural Ethnic Diversity" Page 164 (Translated from: "Inmaculada Alva Rodríguez, Vida municipal en Manila (siglos xvi-xvii) (Córdoba: Universidad de Córdoba, 1997), 31, 35-36." adding Dravidian and Indo-Aryan speaking South Indians and Indo-European speaking Bengalis into the ethnic mix.

The rest were Austronesians and Negritos. With 667,612 people, during this era, the Philippines was among the most sparsely populated lands in Asia. In contrast, Japan during that era (the 1500s) had a population of 8 million and Mexico had a population of 4 million, which was huge compared to the Philippine's 600,000. In 1600, the method of population counting was revamped by the Spanish officials, who then based the counting of the population through church records.

The 1591 census divided territories into provinces and further into encomiendas, the latter corresponding to modern-day towns and villages in the Philippines. By province, the populations included 30,640 for Manila (including Maragondon and Cavite), 75,000 for Pampanga (including Bataan and Bulacan), 24,000 for Pangasinan, 97,000 for Cagayan (including the Babuyan Islands, Calayan, and Camiguing), 68,520 for Ilocos, 48,000 for La Laguna (including Morong), 86,640 for Bicol and the Camarines, 70,000 for Panay (including Guimaras, Tablas, Cabuyan, and Cuyo), 22,000 for Calilaya, 10,000 for the Calamianes, and 65,000 for Cebu (the province including not only the island itself but also Masbate, Burias, Leyte, Negros, and parts of Mindanao, along with other small islands like Mactan). The interiors of the larger islands like Luzon were almost completely uninhabited.JP Sanger, Henry Gannett, Victor Olmsted. "Census of the Philippine Islands: Taken Under the Direction of the Philippine Commission in the Year 1903." Volume 1. United States Bureau of the Census, Washington, 1905. Pages 420-423.

Stephanie J. Mawson, by rummaging through records in the archives of Mexico discovered that the Spaniards were not the only immigrant group to the Philippines; Peru and Mexico too sent soldiers to the islands, and in fact outnumbered the Spaniards who immigrated to the Philippines.

Geographic distribution and year of settlement of the Latin-American immigrant soldiers assigned to the Philippines in the 1600sConvicts or Conquistadores? Spanish Soldiers in the Seventeenth-Century Pacific By Stephanie J. Mawson AGI, México, leg. 25, núm. 62; AGI, Filipinas, leg. 8, ramo 3, núm. 50; leg. 10, ramo 1, núm. 6; leg. 22, ramo 1, núm. 1, fos. 408 r –428 v; núm. 21; leg. 32, núm. 30; leg. 285, núm. 1, fos. 30 r –41 v . Location 1603 1636 1642 1644 1654 1655 1670 1672Manila900446—407821799708667Fort Santiago—22——50—8681Cavite—70——89—225211Cagayan4680————155155Calamianes——————7373Caraga—45————8181Cebu8650————135135Formosa—180——————Moluccas80480507—389———Otón6650————169169Zamboanga—210——184———Other255———————Total reinforcements1,5331,6332,0672,085n/an/a1,6321,572

In 1798, the population of Luzon or Luconia was estimated to be around 600,000 with the other islands, unknown. 200,000 of the 600,000 population were of mixed-raced descent of either Spanish, Chinese or Latin-American admixture. 5,000 enlisted soldiers on that year, were of South American descent, while 2,500 were pure Spanish officers. There were 20,000 new Chinese immigrants. The book, "Intercolonial Intimacies Relinking Latin/o America to the Philippines, 1898–1964 By Paula C. Park" citing "Forzados y reclutas: los criollos novohispanos en Asia (1756–1808)" gave a higher number of later Mexican soldier-immigrants to the Philippines, pegging the number at 35,000 immigrants in the 1700s in a population of only 1.5 million, thus forming 2.33% of the population."Intercolonial Intimacies Relinking Latin/o America to the Philippines, 1898–1964 Paula C. Park" Page 100

In 1799, Friar Manuel Buzeta estimated the population of all the Philippine islands as 1,502,574."The Unlucky Country The Republic of the Philippines in the 21st Century" By Duncan Alexander McKenzie (2012)(page xii) Despite the number of Mixed Spanish-Filipino descent being the lowest, they may be more common than expected as many Spaniards often had Filipino concubines and mistresses and they frequently produced children out of wedlock.

In the late 1700s to early 1800s, Joaquín Martínez de Zúñiga, an Agustinian Friar from Spain, in his Two Volume Book: "Estadismo de las islas Filipinas"Estadismo de Las Islas Filipinas Tomo Segundo By Joaquín Martínez de Zúñiga (Original Spanish) compiled a census of the Spanish-Philippines based on the tribute counts (Which represented an average family of seven to ten children"How big were families in the 1700s?" By Keri Rutherford and two parents, per tribute) and came upon the following statistics:

Data reported for the 1800 as divided by ethnicity and province Province Native Tributes Spanish Mestizo Tributes All TributesTondo14,437-1/23,52827,897-7Cavite5,724-1/28599,132-4Laguna14,392-1/233619,448-6Batangas15,01445121,579-7Mindoro3,1653-1/24,000-8Bulacan16,586-1/22,00725,760-5Pampanga16,604-1/22,64127,358-1Bataan3,0826195,433Zambales1,136734,389Ilocos44,852-1/263168,856Pangasinan19,836719-1/225,366Cagayan9,888011,244-6Camarines19,686-1/2154-1/224,994Albay12,33914616,093Tayabas7,396129,228Cebu28,112-1/262528,863Samar3,0421034,060Leyte7,67837-1/210,011Caraga3,49704,977Misamis1,27801,674Negros Island5,74107,176Iloilo29,72316637,760Capiz11,4598914,867Antique9,228011,620Calamianes2,28903,161TOTAL299,04913,201 424,992-16

The Spanish-Filipino population as a proportion of the provinces widely varied; with as high as 19% of the population of Tondo province (The most populous province and former name of Manila), to Pampanga 13.7%, Cavite at 13%, Laguna 2.28%, Batangas 3%, Bulacan 10.79%, Bataan 16.72%, Ilocos 1.38%, Pangasinan 3.49%, Albay 1.16%, Cebu 2.17%, Samar 3.27%, Iloilo 1%, Capiz 1%, Bicol 20%, and Zamboanga 40%. According to the data, in the Archdiocese of Manila which administers much of Luzon under it, about 10% of the population was Spanish-Filipino. Summing up all the provinces including those with no Spanish Filipinos, all in all, in the total population of the Philippines, Spanish Filipinos and mixed Spanish-Filipinos composed 5% of the population.

Meanwhile, government records show that 20% of the Philippines' total population were either pure Chinese or Mixed Chinese-Filipinos.

There was also the 1818 Tribute count by Buzeta and Bravo as outlined below.

+ Felipe Bravo Census Demographics (Albay, 1818) Provinces Pueblos Native Families Spanish Filipino Families Negrito Families Chinese Filipino Families Albay Albay, Cabicera 5,515 2 2 Manito 240 4 Bacon 2,119 45 Cuba 2,162 52 Casiguran 1,025 28 Juban 396 18 Sorsogon 1,783 149 Bulusan 1,777 19 Bulan 714 16 Donsol 241 Quipia 269 Lilog 821 33 23 Bacacay 1,295 77 Malilipot 981 53 Tabaco 3,347 225 Malitao 2,844 241 Tibi 2,069 157 110 Lagonoy y su anejo 1,669 18 521 San Jose 1,829 114 470 Caramoan 641 72 Total 31,737 1,249 1,198 2

+ Felipe Bravo Census Demographics (Isla De Ticao, 1818) Provinces Pueblos Native Families Spanish Filipino Families Negrito Families Chinese Filipino Families Isla de Ticao San Jacinto 266 8 Total 266 8