San Carlos, officially the City of San Carlos, (Pangasinan: Siyudad na San Carlos; Ilokano: Siudad ti San Carlos; Tagalog: Lungsod ng San Carlos), is a 3rd class city in the province of Pangasinan, Philippines. According to the 2015 census, it has a population of 188,571 people.
As the most populated city in Pangasinan and the entire Ilocos Region.
Also known as Binalatongan, it lies in the central plains of the heart of Pangasinan. Its nearby neighbors are Lingayen, Binmaley, Calasiao, Santa Barbara, Malasiqui, Bayambang, Mangatarem, Urbiztondo and Aguilar with bordering Bugallon and Basista.
In 1571, the Spanish conquest of Pangasinan began with an expedition by the Spanish conquistador Martín de Goiti, who came from the Spanish settlement in Manila through Pampanga. About a year later, another Spanish conquistador, Juan de Salcedo, sailed to Lingayen Gulf and landed at the mouth of the Agno River. Limahong, a Chinese pirate, fled to Pangasinan after his fleet was driven away from Manila in 1574. Limahong failed to establish a colony in Pangasinan, as an army led by Juan de Salcedo chased him out of Pangasinan after a seven-month siege.
The province of Pangasinan dates its actual beginnings as an administrative and judicial district, with Lingayen as the capital, to as early as 1580, but its territorial boundaries were first delineated in 1611. Lingayen has remained the capital of the province except for a brief period during the revolutionary Era when San Carlos served as temporary administrative headquarters, and during the slightly longer Japanese Occupation when Dagupan was the capital.
The province of Pangasinan was formerly classified as an alcaldia mayor de termino, or first class civil province, during the Spanish regime and has, in fact, remained a first class-A province up to the present. Its territorial jurisdiction once included the entire province of Zambales and portions of what are now Tarlac and La Union provinces.
At an assembly convened to organize a central governing body for Central and Northern Luzon on April 17, 1898, General Makabulos appointed Prado as politico-military governor of Pangasinan, with Quesada as his second in command. His appointment came a few days before the return of General Emilio Aguinaldo in May 1898 from his exile in Hong Kong following the signing of the Pact of Biac-na-Bato in December 1897. Aguinaldo’s return gave fresh impetus to the renewal of the flame of the revolution. Thus, on June 3, 1898, General Makabulos entered Tarlac and from that day on, the fires of revolution spread.
So successful were the Filipinos in their many pitched battles against the Spaniards that on June 30, 1898, Spanish authorities decided to evacuate all their forces to Dagupan where a last stand against the rebels was to be made. They were ordered to go to Dagupan were all civilian and military personnel, including members of the volunteer locales of towns not yet in rebel hands. Those who heeded this order were the volunteer forces of Mangaldan, San Jacinto, Pozorrubio, Manaoag, and Villasis. Among the items brought to Dagupan was the image of the Most Holy Rosary of the Virgin of Manaoag, which was already the patron saint of Pangasinan.
When the forces of Maramba from the east and Prado from the west converged in Dagupan on July 18, 1898, the siege began. The arrival of General Makabulos strengthened the rebel forces until the Spaniards, holed up inside the Catholic Church, waved the flag of surrender five days later. Armed poorly, the Filipinos were no match at the very start with Spanish soldiers holed inside the Church. They just became mere sitting ducks to Spanish soldiers shooting with their rifles from a distance. But the tempo of battle changed when the attackers, under Don Vicente Prado, devised a crude means of protection to shield them from Spanish fire while advancing. This happened when they rolled trunks of bananas, bundled up in sawali, that enabled them to inch their way to the Church.
Pangasinan is located on the west central area of the island of Luzon in the Philippines. It is bordered by La Union to the north, Benguet and Nueva Vizcaya to the northeast, Nueva Ecija to the southeast, and Zambales and Tarlac to the south. To the west of Pangasinan is the South China Sea. The province also encloses the Lingayen Gulf.
The province has a land area of 5,451.01 square kilometres (2,104.65 sq mi). It is 170 kilometres (110 mi) north of Manila, 50 kilometres (31 mi) south of Baguio City, 115 kilometres (71 mi) north of Subic International Airport and Seaport, and 80 square kilometres (31 sq mi) north of Clark International Airport. At the coast of Alaminos, the Hundred islands have become a famous tourist spot.
The terrain of the province, as part of the Central Luzon plains, is typically flat, with a few parts being hilly and/or mountainous. The northeastern municipalities of San Manuel, San Nicolas, Natividad, San Quintin and Umingan have hilly to mountainous areas, situated at the tip of the Cordillera mountains. The Zambales mountains extend to the province’s western towns of Labrador, Mabini, Bugallon, Aguilar, Mangatarem, Dasol, and Infanta forming the mountainous portions of those towns.
The Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology (PHIVOLCS) reported several inactive volcanoes in the province: Amorong, Balungao, Cabaluyan, Cahelietan, Candong, and Malabobo. PHIVOLCS reported no active or potentially active volcanoes in Pangasinan. A caldera-like landform is located between the towns of Malasiqui and Villasis with a center at about 15° 55′ N and 120° 30′ E near the Cabaruan Hills.
Several rivers traverse the province. The longest is the Agno River, which originates from the Cordillera Mountains of Benguet, eventually emptying its waters into the Lingayen Gulf. Other major rivers include the Bued River, Angalacan River, Sinocalan River, Patalan River and the Cayanga River.
The religion of the people of Pangasinan is predominantly Christianity with Roman Catholicism as the overwhelming majority at 80% affiliation in the population. The second major denomination in the province is the Aglipayan Church with at least 15% of the population. Other religious denominations are divided with other Christian groups such as Members Church of God International, Iglesia Ni Cristo, Baptist, Methodist, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (Mormon), Jehovah’s Witnesses and Seventh-day Adventist. Few are strict believers and continue to practice their indigenous anito beliefs and rituals, like most of the people of the Philippines.
Spanish and American missionaries introduced Christianity to Pangasinan. Prior to the Spanish conquest in 1571, the predominant religion of the people of Pangasinan was similar to the indigenous religion of the highland Igorot or the inhabitants of the Cordillera Administrative Region on the island of Luzon, who mostly retained their indigenous culture and religion. A translation of the New Testament (excluding Revelation) in the Pangasinan language by Fr. Nicolas Manrique Alonzo Lallave, a Spanish Dominican friar assigned in Urdaneta, was the first ever translation of a complete portion of the Bible in a Philippine language. Pangasinan was also influenced by Hinduism, Buddhism and Islam to a lesser extent, before the introduction of Christianity.