Region of the Philippines

In the Philippines, regions (Filipino: rehiyon), ISO 3166-2:PH) are administrative divisions that serve primarily to organize the provinces (Filipino: lalawigan) of the country for administrative convenience. Currently, the archipelagic republic of the Philippines is divided into 18 regions (17 administrative and 1 autonomous). Most government offices are established by region instead of individual provincial offices, usually (but not always) in the city designated as the regional center.

The regions themselves do not possess a separate local government, with the exception of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, which has an elected regional assembly and governor. The Cordillera Administrative Region was originally intended to be autonomous (Cordillera Autonomous Region), but the failure of two plebiscites for its establishment reduced it to a regular administrative region.

Regions first came to existence in on September 24, 1972, when the provinces of the Philippines were organized into eleven regions under Presidential Decree № 1 as part of the Integrated Reorganization Plan of President Ferdinand Marcos.

Since that time, other regions have been created and some provinces have been transferred from one region to another.

As of May 2015^[update], the Philippines comprises 18 administrative regions, with one being autonomous. These regions are geographically organized into the three island groups of Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao.

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