Barangay state

In early Philippine history, the Barangay was a complex sociopolitical unit which scholars have historically considered the dominant organizational pattern among the various peoples of the Philippine archipelago.

These sociopolitical units were sometimes also referred to as Barangay states, but are more properly referred to using the technical term "polity," rather than "state", so they are usually simply called "barangays." Early chroniclers record that the name evolved from the term balangay, which refers to a plank boat widely used by various cultures of the Philippine archipelago prior to the arrival of European colonizers.

Some barangays were well-organized independent villages, consisting of thirty to a hundred households. Other barangays - most notably those in Maynila, Tondo, Panay, Pangasinan, Cebu, Bohol, Butuan, Cotabato, and Sulu - were integrated into large cosmopolitan polities.

Anthropologist F. Landa Jocano defines this period of the barangay states' dominance - approximately the 14th to the 16th centuries - as the "Barangic Phase" of early Philippine history.

Historical Barangays should not be confused with present-day Philippine barrios, which were officially renamed barangays by the Philippine Local Government Code of 1991 as a reference to historical barangays.

Historically, the first barangays started as relatively small communities of around 30 to 100 families, with a population that varies from one hundred to five hundred persons. When the Spaniards came, they found communities with twenty to thirty people only. They also encountered large and prestigious principalities.

The coastal villages were more accessible to trade with foreigners. These were ideal places for economic activity to develop. Business with traders from other Countries also meant contact with other cultures and civilizations, such as those of Japan, Han Chinese, Indian people, and Arab people.

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