Before the arrival of the Spanish in the 16th century, the people lived in small independent villages called barangays, each ruled by a petty king called a datu. Rural settlement today is centred upon poblaciones, or small towns, originally founded by the Spanish. Roads or trails were built from the poblacion in four to six directions, like the spokes of a wheel, and along the roadsides barrios, or villages, grew up, subdivided into smaller units called sitios. More people now live in the barrios than in the poblaciones. A large barrio may be composed of as many as 1,000 households and have a population of 4,000 or more. The cultivation of rice or corn (maize) and fishing provide the basic subsistence.

Manila, Cebu, Jaro, Vigan, and Nueva Caceres (now called Naga) were granted city charters by the Spanish. More chartered cities were founded under U.S. administration and since independence in 1946. Quezon City was chartered in 1939 and became the capital of the Philippines in 1948. In 1975 Manila, Pasay City, Caloocan, and Quezon City and 13 adjoining municipalities were placed under one administrative unit known as Metropolitan, or Metro, Manila. The city proper of Manila was again made the national capital in 1976; Metropolitan Manila is designated the National Capital Region. In addition to the cities there are a great many municipalities and a number of municipal districts.