Manila history

Manila's history is intertwined with its geographic location. Manila Bay was an ideal port for Spanish ships bearing gold, spices, silk and ceramics (treasure hunters still seek sunken Manila galleons today).

Unfortunately for Manileños, this also attracted a string of invaders. Spain first conquered Manila in 1571, and for 300 years, it successfully repelled a series of invasion attempts by the Chinese, Dutch and the British.

Today, there isn’t a great deal remaining of the Spanish colonial city Miguel Lopez de Legaspi founded on the Pasay River. Earthquakes, WWII wartime Japanese occupation and US bombing in 1945, alongside unbridled development, have seen to that.

Manila’s broken past now lies scattered across a modest collection of museums. The best of which are eye-catching exhibitions of pre-colonial and shipwreck treasures found at fine exhibitions at the National Museum and Ayala Museum.

Otherwise only Intramuros’s old city hints at a once beautiful architectural past. Its narrow streets host the Philippines’s oldest building, the 16th-century San Augustin Church, and recreate an atmosphere long vanished outside this enclave’s doughty walls.