enTravel

Vigan

The City of Vigan is a 5th class city in the province of Ilocos Sur, Philippines. It is the capital of the Province of Ilocos Sur. The city is located on the western coast of the large island of Luzon, facing the South China Sea. It is a World Heritage Site in that it is one of the few Hispanic towns left in the Philippines, and is well known for its cobblestone streets, and a unique architecture hat fuses Philippine and Oriental building designs and construction, with colonial European architecture.

Vigan is an island which is separated from the mainland by three bodies of water the Abra River, the Mestizo River, and the Govantes River. The city is unique in the Philippines because it is one of many extensive surviving Philippine historic cities, dating back to the 16th century. Vigan was a coastal trading post long before the Spaniards arrived; Chinese traders sailing from the South China Sea came to Isla de Vigan (Island of Vigan) via the Mestizo River that surrounded the island. On board their ships were seafaring merchants that came to trade goods from other Asian kingdoms in exchange for gold, beeswax, and other mountain products brought by the indigenous peoples from the Cordilleras region.