| The City of Zamboanga is a first class, highly urbanized city on the island of Mindanao in the Philippines. It is one of the first chartered cities and the sixth largest in the country.
Philippine Commonwealth Act No. 39 of 1936 signed by President Manuel L. Quezon on October 12, 1936 in Malacañang Palace created and established Zamboanga as a chartered city. It has been known as "El Orgullo de Mindanao" (The Pride of Mindanao), nicknamed the "City of Flowers", and affectionately called by Zamboangueños as "Zamboanga Hermosa" - Spanish for "Beautiful Zamboanga". Today, the city is commercially branded for tourism by the city government as "Asia's Latin City".
Zamboanga City's birthday as a chartered city coincides with the day when the popular Fiesta del Pilar is celebrated in honor of the city's patron saint, Our Lady of the Pillar, whose statue is prominently embossed above the façade on the northern side of the meter-thick walled fort called El Real Fuerza de Nuestra Señora del Pilar de Zaragoza (also called El Real Fuerza de San José in its early days). This Spanish military fort was built on June 23, 1635 by the Spanish Jesuit priest Fr. Melchor de Vera in defense against pirates and slave raiders. Zamboanga City is one of the oldest cities in the country and the most hispanicized. It is also one of the largest cities in the world in terms of area, with over 1,480 km², including its 28 surrounding islands.
According to the 2000 census, the city has a population of 700,078 people (2005 pop. est.) in 177,152 households. It is the 6th most populous in the country. Zamboanga City has been the center of commerce, trade, health services, and education for all of the Western Mindanao Region. It is the seat of the Zamboanga City Special Economic Zone Authority (popularly known as Zamboecozone). The people of Zamboanga speak a unique creole language called Chavacano which is a blend of Spanish and local dialects. In recent years, more Cebuano and Tagalog words and phrases have infiltrated the local dialect and this infiltration is causing the dialect to decline and lose its purity. While the infiltration is a caused for furor among purists, the reality is Zamboanga City has always been multicultural from the beginning. This is no where more evident that in its downtown hub where peoples of various religious and ethnic backgrounds have co-mingled.
Zamboanga is home to three universities: Ateneo de Zamboanga University, Western Mindanao State University, and the newly-elevated Universidad de Zamboanga. The city is also home of the first Catholic diocese in Mindanao, today's Archdiocese of Zamboanga, created in 1910 and elevated to an archbishopric in 1958.
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