Pangasinan (Pangasinan: Luyag na Pangasinan; Filipino: Lalawigan ng Pangasinan) is a province in the Philippines. Its official language is Pangasinan and its provincial capital is Lingayen. Pangasinan is located on the western area of the island of Luzon along the Lingayen Gulf and South China Sea. It has a total land area of 5,451.01 square kilometres (2,104.65 sq mi). According to the 2015 census, it has a population of 2,956,726 people. The official number of registered voters in Pangasinan is 1,651,814.
Pangasinan is the name for the province, the people, and the official language spoken in the province. Indigenous Pangasinan speakers are estimated to number at least 2 million. The Pangasinan language is one of the officially recognized regional languages in the Philippines. In Pangasinan, there were several ethnic groups who enriched the cultural fabric of the province. Almost all of the people are Pangasinenses and the rest are descendants of Bolinao and Ilocano, who settled the eastern and western parts of the province. Pangasinan is also spoken as a second-language by many of the ethnic minorities in Pangasinan. The minority ethnic groups are the Bolinaos and the Ilocanos.
The name Pangasinan pronounced as "Pang-gASINan" It means "place for salt" or "place of salt-making"; it is derived from the prefix pang, meaning "for", the root word asin, meaning "salt”, and suffix an, signifying "location". At present it is pronounced Paŋgasinan based on the Spanish pronunciation due to their inability to utter or pronounce the nasal sound <nga> /ŋ/. The province is a major producer of salt in the Philippines. Its major products include "bagoong" ("salted-fish") and "aramang" ("salted-shrimp")
Pangasinan was founded by Austronesian speakers who called themselves Anakbanwa by at least 2500 BC. A kingdom called Luyag na Caboloan, which expanded to incorporate much of northwestern Luzon, existed in Pangasinan before the Spanish conquest that began in the 16th century. The Kingdom of Loyag na Kaboloan was known as the Huangdom of Pangasinan in Chinese records. The ancient Pangasinan people were skilled navigators and the maritime trade network that once flourished in ancient Southeast Asia connected Pangasinan with other peoples of Southeast Asia, India, China, and the Pacific. The ancient kingdom of Luyag na Caboloan was in fact mentioned in Chinese and Indian records as being an important kingdom on ancient trade routes.